


domino effect

by crazynadine



Series: domino effect [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Escape, F/M, M/M, Prison, Prison Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-18 22:53:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11300526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazynadine/pseuds/crazynadine
Summary: It was a series of seemingly unrelated events that lead him to the decision. To take one last huge risk. To maybe have one single chance to be actually happy. All these different things, connected yet not, falling together like dominoes to bring him to this place.





	domino effect

**Author's Note:**

> Just a heads up, Ian is not in this fic. Because he wasn't around for Mickey while he was in jail this last time. He's obviously mentioned a lot, but that's it.

The day started like any other day. And why wouldn't it? Every day was exactly the same in this place. No variation, No spontaneity. Routine. It was all routine.

The alarm sounded at 5:45am. A loud, hollow thrumming throughout the unit. Behind the locked door, Mickey groaned. Today, of all days, would be a good day to sleep in. He was hoping he could fly under the radar today. Just blend into the background. Fade away.

But that was not to be, apparently, as his celly popped his head up from the bunk opposite his and grumbled "Happy birthday, asshole." 

Mickey said nothing in response at first, just looked over at him, his sleep-rumpled face, puffy eyes. 

"Shut the fuck up, Jack. We talked about this. No birthday bullshit. I don't give a fuck, and I don't want anyone else to know, so fuck off with that shit." It was too early in the morning to be talking at all, never mind telling off his dick of a cellmate. Mickey rolled over and tried to go back to sleep for the 10 minutes he had before he was forced out of bed.

But Jack was having none of it. He crawled out of his bunk and made his way across the tiny cell, to the side of Mickey's bed. 

"But I had this whole happy 22 thing planned for your grumpy ass....." he drawled as he tugged insistently at mickey's bed covers. 

Mickey smirked to himself as he let his cellmate manhandle his covers away, tugging roughly at his state issue boxers. "Well, if you must. But keep this birthday shit between us, I'm not in the mood for everyone on the unit to give me shit about it all day, okay?" he asked, breathing out sharply as Jack took his morning wood into his mouth.

"mmmmmmhmmm" Jack mumbled around a mouthful of cock. Mickey smiled and tipped his head back, trying to enjoy the moment.

Jack was an okay dude, and good looking enough. An inch or so taller than Mickey with blue/grey eyes and shaggy dirty blond hair. Skinny motherfucker, though, not a stitch of muscle on him. He'd been Mickey's cellmate for about a year now. In on a couple of possession charges, as well as distribution. Heroin and cocaine. Kid was a junkie, through and through. Do anything for a fix. Which was whatever, as far as Mickey was concerned. Everyone had their thing. Jack was at the tail end of a two and a half year bid, and him and Mickey had been cellies since Mickey came to this godforsaken prison.

Sex between inmates was commonplace. As long as you didn't advertise, there was a don't ask-don't tell policy in the prison. It was about a month into their cohabitation that Jack made the move, telling Mickey he was too stressed out all the time, and they could either fight it out or fuck it out. At first, Mickey wanted to kick his fucking ass. How dare this punk proposition him like some kind of fag for sale? But then he remembered that none of that shit mattered anymore. He came to terms with who he was a long time ago. And it's not like fucking a dude in jail screamed "homo" anyway. It happened all the time. Not to mention the fact that Mickey wasn't in the closet anymore. He had no plan on going back in for anything. And on top of all that stellar reasoning was the most glaring bullet point of all: he had no on to be faithful to. Ian had walked out of his life, not even sparing a him a glance as he turned his back on him. So Mickey gave Jack a pass for running his mouth like a tool. The kid had balls, Mickey could appreciate that. So he chose the latter option, and bent him over. Kid was an okay fuck, kept his mind occupied. Mickey always fucked him. No way in hell he was letting his guard down enough to be that vulnerable. So the sex wasn't what he really wanted, or with who he really wanted (he didn't want to think about that, at all.) but he got his rocks off, and that was a win in his book. Beggars can't be choosers. 

Jack was going to town on Mickey's dick, while Mickey was indulging in his inner monologue. He came back to the present when Jack swirled his tongue around the head, and fondled his balls with his right hand.

"Jesus, man." Mickey mumbled, while struggling not to drop his hand to jack's head. He tried to never touch him, if he could help it. He didn't want intimacy to confuse the sex they were trying to have.

Jack looked up at him with his hazel eyes, smirking around his hard on. Mickey dropped his head back to the shitty pillow and closed his eyes. Jack backed off almost all the way, then deep-throated it as far down as he could. Mickey felt the kid's breath fanning over his pubes. Jack swallowed around his length and hummed, and Mickey was done. Feeling the familiar tightening of his balls, he muttered a muffled "fuck" and shot his load into Jack's mouth.

Jack sat up off the cot, leaned his head over the sink by the window, and spit Mickey's load into the drain. 

"Well, happy birthday anyway. Let's go get breakfast." and he stood up and headed out of the cell, not even bothering to change out of his sweats and t shirt. 

Mickey shook his head. What the fuck just happened? 

He put his sweats on, and a gray sweatshirt, with his orange flip flops, (thank you, state of Illinois) took a piss, and met his cellmate in the hallway. 

He and Jack stopped at the nurse's station, getting in line behind a half dozen other inmates waiting not so patiently for their morning doses. The line crept slowly, and Mickey let his mind wander yet again, absentmindedly scratching at his chest. Yet another reminder of what a complete asshole he was. If he hadn't been outted as a fag by his father via the prison rumor mill, his tattoo of another man's name emblazoned across his chest surely did the trick. Jack gave him shit about it all the time, the dick. 

There was a fight going on in the front of the line. Some asshole inmate was giving the nurse shit about getting his dose.

"Listen bitch, Doc said I could get those pills morning and night, so fork them the fuck over." the dude, Ellison was his name if Mickey remember correctly, screamed. He was flailing his hands around and slamming his fists down on the counter, red faced and angry. A CO came over quickly and started pulling him away. 

"No, fuck you!! The doc said I could get that shit twice a day!!! Call that asshole down here, I want my shit!!!" he was screaming the whole way down the hall.

Mickey walked up to the window, leaning casually on the little shelf. 

"Hey Martzi." he said, smiling. "Looks like it's been an interesting morning so far." 

"Hey Mickey." the nurse replied, returning his smile. "Happy birthday." 

"Cut that shit out, nobody gives a fuck." he replied, eyes downcast. 

"Oh, come on now, you must have someone." she said, trying to reestablish eye contact, leaning down to look at him. "What about your family?" 

Ugh, that's the last thing he wanted to talk about right now, but Maritza was a nice girl, and a good nurse. She treated him like a human being, not a convict. So he looked back up at her and smiled. "Yeah, I may call my sister. Get her down for a visit, if I'm lucky."

"See, there's something." her face lit up, like she actually gave a shit. Mickey didn't know how to handle that.

"But for now, I'd just like my meds, so I can go eat whatever fucking slop they're passing off as breakfast today." 

"Okay, okay." she said, moving around behind the counter to get his medication together. He had a cup with three pills in it. Buspar and; Lexapro for anxiety and depression, and an antibiotic for a cut he got not too long ago, working in the laundry.

Mickey didn't believe he had anxiety or depression, but the shrink they made him see in this shit hole thought differently. And it was more trouble to refuse the shit than to just take it. He didn't want to end up back on the psych unit. That shit was hell on earth. So he swallowed the pills and kept his mouth shut. 

"I hope you have a good day, Mickey. As good as you can in here, okay?" Martzi said, genuine smile on her face. God only knows why this chick was so nice, why she chose to work in the prison of all places. But she was good to Mickey, and he didn't take that shit lightly anymore. 

"Thanks, Martzi, I'll do my best." 

She smiled again, and nodded.

Mickey stepped aside so Jack could walk up to the window. He got his little pink cup of methadone. (the prison actually did the program, which was kind of unheard of) and some Neurontin, for what, Mickey didn't know. He didn't ask. None of his business.

The two men walked away from the nurses station and toward the cafeteria. 

Jack put his hand to his mouth and made a coughing noise. Mickey looked over curiously.

Jacks spit the Neurontin out into his hand, and raised his eyebrows at Mickey.

Mickey put his hand down and Jack passed him the pill. 

"For the birthday boy." he muttered with a smirk. Mickey looked around the hallway. Seeing no one in the vicinity, he swallowed the pill dry. It probably would only fuck him up slightly, but anything to get out of his head in this place was good by him.

 

Later in the morning, Mickey was at his mandatory job. Working in the laundry sucked. He never even did his own laundry on the outside, now he was neck deep in other dudes dirty socks, and he hated it. But the measly 50 cents an hour went a ways to getting him some commissary. Especially since no one ever put money on his books for him. So he folded underwear and sorted uniforms into sizes, and he loaded and unloaded washers and dryers for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. It was almost meditative, like his mind went blank. Which was a welcome respite from the bullshit that usually ran laps in his brain.

He was feeling slightly light and fuzzy from the Neurontin Jack gave him. Just the smallest of buzzes, like taking a 2mg Klonopin, but in here, it was a godsend. He actually felt a small, genuine smile tugging at his lips. That's when he ran into Cassie for the first time that day.

Cassie was a CO that worked on his unit. He liked her okay. She was nice to him, did favors for him, looked the other way for him most of the time. She put herself on the line for him, and at first he didn't get it. Why the fuck did she care? Then one day she made her reasoning painfully obvious....

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mickey was folding sheets in the back of the laundry, behind some giant washers. The other inmates were folding an endless stack of towels by the front of the huge room.

Cassie had walked over, running her hand across the folding table. "Hey Milkovich." she said, eyeing him in an odd way mickey couldn't place. 

"Hey Mcfarland" he'd replied. Damn ginger. She had fire red hair, pulled up into a messy bun on top of her head. She was petite, a few inches shorter than Mickey, with a small, boyish frame. No real tits or ass to speak of. Not that Mickey noticed that shit, really.

"How about we take a break." she said, giving him a meaningful look.

"Excuse me?" he asked, a little taken aback.

"Go on break with me." she repeated, boldly stepping up next to him, invading his personal space. He could feel the heat radiating off her body.

"Uh, a) you're a CO, I'm an inmate and b) I don't play for your team." Mickey said, trying to busy himself with his job. Laundry had never been so interesting.

"I'm not asking, inmate, and I'm sure you can perform under pressure." she smirked, leading the way to the bathroom at the end of the room.

Mickey sighed, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. Sure, he could perform under pressure. He'd had to play it straight for most of his life. Including fucking a hooker at gunpoint while his psychotic father watched. He'd thought he'd left all that shit behind. But apparently he was not done being forced yet.

He followed Cassie to the bathroom. Why the fuck was she doing this? She was an objectively pretty girl, Mickey could at least see that. He was sure she could fuck whoever she wanted to on the outside. Why did she feel the need to force an inmate at the jail she worked at to fuck her? 

But Mickey was in no position to ask these questions. He was a convict, she was a CO. She could ruin him, get him put in the hole or transferred to another prison. He had no choice.

Once he got to the staff bathroom, he locked the door behind him. she was leaning over the toilet, pants down around her ankles, looking over her shoulder lustfully, handing him a condom. Bitch came prepared. Presumptuous much? Damn it. "Let's get a move on, kid, time is of the essence." 

Mickey shook his head balefully. He undid his pants and pulled out his cock. He started jerking it, thinking of something to get hard fast. There was only one thing that could get him in working order in record time, but he soooo didn't want to go there. The pain was too intense. But he had to do this quick, so he had no choice. 

He cast his eyes away from Cassie's bare ass, and focused on her red hair. That he could work with. Him.... with his blazing red hair, his endless emerald eyes. His huge hands and even bigger cock. Turning Mickey out every time. Rutting into him from the back, fingertips digging into his hips, rocking into him incessantly. Whispering "There you go, Mick, let go, I got you."

He was rock hard almost instantly, slid the condom on and he positioned himself behind her without a word. He shoved unceremoniously into her and couldn't help his first thought 'Well this is all wrong. not tight enough, too wet.' He had to stay focused on his Gallagher-centric fantasy to keep hard. And he had to keep hard if he wanted to get out of this without a write up. Cassie had really fucked him over. He pushed into the girl in front of him over and over, trying to ignore her whiny little gasps and small feminine cries. He didn't want to lose his boner, after all. She started pushing back against his thrusts and he supposed that was a good sign. 'What the actual fuck is happening to me right now?' he wonders. 

She placed her hand over his hand that was resting on her hip. He had to force himself not to shove it off as he started pulling her back onto his cock. Hard and fast usually got the job done, no matter the gender of his partner. She started breathing heavy. He slammed into her harder and harder, his knuckles going white where he was gripping her hips. A few more erratic thrusts and she cried out. Orgasm? Mickey didn't know. He had no interest in the female orgasm. But she looked back at him with a sated smile, and pushed him off her. He didn't even come close to finishing. He was already going soft, if he was being honest with himself. So he took the condom off and flushed it, tucking his dick back into his uniform pants.

"Thank Milkovich, I needed that." she laughed, pulling her work pants back on and doing up her belt.

"I'd say you're welcome, but I didn't have a choice, so whatever." he replied, feeling used and dirty. A feeling he was all too familiar with, and he didn't like it. And he didn't like Cassie anymore either. 

"Oh come on now, Milkovich. it wasn't so bad. Even for a full blown queer like you, you know how to fuck." she laughed again. Was she laughing at him??

"How the fuck do you know I'm gay?" Mickey asked, leaning against the bathroom wall.

"My boyfriend knows your brother Iggy." she stated simply, like it was the most normal thing in the world. 

"So you have a boyfriend, you know I'm gay, and you still blackmailed me into fucking you? What the fuck?" he huffed, running a hand through his hair. He just stared at her.

She shrugged noncommittally. "Eh, you're hot, I'm here. why not? Besides, your brother says we could maybe have some business, if you're interested. My boyfriend sells a bit, and this market could be a good one. Your brother and my man would be the outside guys, and you and me would be the inside source. You do the selling, I keep an eye out, keep everything flying below the radar. You interested??" she asked, pulling her long red hair into a ponytail on top of her head. 

"And do I have to keep fucking you? What about your boyfriend?" Mickey asked, not sure what the hell was going on.

"Well, yeah. He cheats, why the fuck can't I? except I can't do it out there, someone would say something. So this is the perfect set up for everyone." she smiled coyly.

"Except me." mick said. "I'm fucking gay. I don't want to fuck you. And who said I even wanted in on this drug shit?" he waved his hand around for emphasis.

"Listen Mickey, your brother told me you fucked girls on the outside." Mickey huffed, deciding he needed to call Iggy and give him a refresher course on minding his own fucking business. "And I know you need the money." she continued. "I don't want you to give a shit about me. It's a god damn business arrangement. I want sex. No strings. Rough, emotionless sex. You want money, free drugs, and a CO on the inside to keep you on the right side of the raids. So take one for the fucking team and do what I say, okay?"

Mickey had no idea what this bitch's angle was. This shit just didn't sit right with him. But he was on the losing end of the deal. Especially since he already fucked her. She could claim rape, have him sent away for longer, as a sex offender. That was a death sentence in Gen Pop. He may as well hang it up. So he sighed again, shooting her an unimpressed glare.

"You're a stone cold bitch, you know that." he said shaking his head.

"Yeah, I think we'll make a good team" she laughed, leading him out of the bathroom and back to the endless pile of dirty laundry. \----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

 

That was about six months ago, and Mickey and Cassie had what some might call a good working relationship now. He did what he had to to get by. Cassie was nice enough, and Mickey could see she was way more fucked up than she let on. He had a good eye for emotionally traumatized people, being captain of the team himself. The situation with her "boyfriend", Iggy's friend Louis, what bullshit as far as Mickey was concerned. He cheated on her all the time. With her friends, her cousins, hookers, junkies he supplied. It was an endless parade of pussy, and Mickey didn't know why she put up with it. His mind immediately went to Ian, like it did with most things. Ian had cheated on him, but that was because of his disorder. He didn't do it on purpose, or because he didn't give a shit. He was sick. Louis had no such excuse. He just liked to fuck around. 

Mickey didn't understand why Cassie stayed with him. 

"I fucking love him, Mickey. I can't explain it any other way. He makes me feel alive, like I can breathe for a second." 

Mickey got that. He hadn't been able to breathe for over a year now.

So he helped Cassie out. He sold the drugs for Louis and Iggy. He fucked Cassie when she was pissed at Louis. He did what was asked of him, and he never complained.

 

Mickey was pulled out of his reverie by Cassie's hand on his arm. He started, jerking away.

"What the fuck, Cass, you're gonna get stabbed one of these days, sneaking up on an inmate like that." He huffed, scanning the room for other inmates. Coast seemingly clear, he allowed himself to relax the smallest bit.

"Not AN INMATE, Mickey, my inmate." she smiled, running her hand over his crotch.

"Hey, Jesus." Mickey spat, looking around again. 

"Calm down, Mickey, all the other inmates are out collecting dirty laundry." she smirked, going back to rubbing at his dick with her palm. 

"Come on Cass, I don't want to fuck today. It's my birthday, have pity on me." he whined. He stomped his foot, grinding his toe into the concrete floor of the shop. He knew he looked like a 5 year old at the moment, but fuck if he wasn't frustrated. 

"No can do, Milkovich." she giggled. "Luis went out an fucked my best friend last night. I feel like a revenge fuck, a real hardcore hate fuck. You better give it to me raw, or else I'll write you up." she poked his chest with her index finger, smiling. Mickey could never tell if she was being serious, or fucking with him. Did she not understand that this arrangement was hell for him? Did she not care that he felt like he was being sexually assaulted every time he stuck his dick in her? Did she really not know? Could she be she clueless? 

He didn't know. But he wasn't going to ask. There was too much at stake. He didn't want to rock the boat. He was woefully aware that he didn't have a leg to stand on.

So he lead her to the broom closet, out of sight of the one camera in the laundry room. She wasted no time, pulling down her pants and turning around. They had an agreement, much like the one he had with Jack. No kissing, no touching. Just fucking. No face to face, and no feelings. No god damn feelings at all.

She bent over the shelving and arched her back, ready for him.

Mickey silently cursed his bad luck and all the gods he could remember, before taking his limp dick into his hand, and stroking it to life. It was easier now than that first time, much easier. He didn't even have to think of Gallagher if he didn't want to. But sometimes he still indulged. It was his birthday after all. He could let it go this one time. He though of Gallagher, on the last birthday he had on the outside. He had laid Mickey out, and fucked him for hours, telling him how he would never love anyone the way he loved Mickey. Hitting his prostate with precision pulses til he came all over himself untouched, Ian's hands never leaving his face. Promises of love on his swollen lips.

Again, he was hard in no time. He walked up behind Cassie, she looked over her shoulder and smirked. "Don't go easy on me, inmate." 

And mickey was so livid, so pissed that he was here, in this fucking hell-hole, standing behind this bitch who's pretty much raping him on his birthday. The only person he ever loved invading his thought, while abandoning him in reality. 

So he walked up behind her, and shoved his dick in her hard enough to make her gasp. He gave her no time to adjust. Hopefully no time to enjoy it. He wanted her to hate it as much as he did. So he grabbed her by the hips and he railed her. So fucking hard he thought his dick was going to snap off. She was whimpering and clawing at him, trying to move away, but he was having none of it.

 

"You said hate fuck, right?" he asked in a breathy whisper, and continued to pound her. She wrapped her hands around the metal shelving and tried to stifle her cries by burying her face in her arm. He did something he'd never done before. He grabbed her by her red ponytail, and pulled, hard. She gasped, loud. Mickey could see her scalp being pulled taut, see the vein in her neck pulsing. He was so over this bullshit. He pulled harder. 

The kinky bitch seemed to like that, and a few minutes later she came. Or at least she said she did. Mickey didn't give a fuck. He was so tired of this shit. He zipped up his uniform pants and walked back into the laundry, not sparing Cassie a single glance. 

 

About an hour later, they were still in the laundry, finishing up the day's work, when she finally spoke to him again.

"So, I'm not always like this." 

"Like what, Cass, forcing gay men to fuck you to get revenge on your cheating boyfriend? That's good to know. You're probably a really good person otherwise." Mickey replied sarcastically.

"I don't know how I got here......" she whispered, looking away from him.

"What do you mean?" he asked, exasperated that they were even having this conversation. 

"I mean, how did I end up an abused girlfriend of a drug dealer, with an inmate fuck buddy, and a mile-long list of felonies chasing me down?" she said, looking at him with pleading eyes.

" You love him." mickey stated simply, gathering up the last of the laundry.

"Yeah" she said. "Yeah, I do. A lot." 

"Well, there's your answer. That's what ended me up in this fucking nightmare. Loved the kid too much. Did crazy shit to protect him. Now he's gone. So fuck me, huh? And fuck love." Mickey swiped his thumb over his top lip and avoided her eyes.

"Well, I guess we're both assholes then," she said. Mickey laughed. 

"I guess so." he replied, as they made their way back to the unit. 

 

Dinner was a shit show. The cook and his buddies knew it was Mickey's birthday. (how the fuck did everyone find out????) They made a special cornbread with M&Ms on it, and they all sang happy birthday to him. In front of the whole chow hall. Half the inmates were ecstatic, cheering and hollering. Mickey was mortified. But he also felt a little happy. No one had ever sang happy birthday to him, in all his 22 years. Not Mandy, not Gallagher, no one. So he smiled and kept his mouth shut. It was actually kinda nice.

Jack sat next to him, eating his turkey and rice, saying nothing... he knew better. He just smiled his secret smile. A promise of things to come. And Mickey didn't say a word to him. It was better for them if they didn't interact too much outside the cell. Keep things on the down-low. That's the way Mickey liked it. Keep that shit private. Gossip was like money in prison. If you had shit on someone, you could sell it to the highest bidder. And Mickey didn't want to be on anyone's auction block. So they sat silently, passing glances and roaming eyes. Nothing more.

 

After dinner and his semi-edible cornbread birthday cake, Mickey made his way down to the phone bank before TV time.

He didn't make phone calls often. He didn't see the point. All that outside shit he couldn't control. He couldn't help. He couldn't be there. Why put himself or the people he loved through that bullshit?? 

But he was feeling weak. After everything Cassie had told him, after all the fucked up Gallagher memories he'd been assaulted with, after another birthday alone and empty....he needed something to make him feel safe, make him feel like he was still Mickey.

So he dialed the number.

And he waited.

One ring.

Two rings.

Three rings.

Four rings.

He was getting frustrated. Starting to think this is the stupidest idea he's ever had. Fuck this. Fuck everyone. Fuck me.

Then.....

"Hello??"

"You have a collect call from inmate--- it's me bitch--- calling form MCC CHICAGO, to accept the charges, press 1"

He heard the sound of a key being pressed, then:

"Shithead, is that you?"

"Hey Mands." Mickey breathed.

"Jesus Mick, it's been forever. You never call. Happy birthday, motherfucker. I miss your stupid ass."

"Well bitch, it's not like I've moved. you don't come around." Mickey said, twirling the phone cord in his hand. He didn't want to be mad. It just got so fucking lonely with no visitors. It had been months since anyone bothered to show. 

"I'm sorry Mick. Work has been crazy, I was thinking about coming up this weekend. Would that be cool?" she asked, hesitantly. Mickey could tell she was scared he'd say no.

"Of course that'd be cool. Got nothing better to do." he mumbled. 

"Okay, I'll see if I can make it up there." she replied.

There was a moment of silence, where neither of them wanted to say the next sentence, but the both knew exactly where this conversation was going, where it always went.

"So, have you talked to him?"

"Yeah, Mick, I talk to him once in a while. We keep in touch." Mandy sounds tired, reluctant to talk about this, but Mickey didn't care. It's his birthday, and if this is what he wants, she damn well better give it to him.

"Is he doing okay??" the desperation in his voice is not lost on either of them.

"I really don't know Mick. I mean he says he's good. I don't hang out with him like I used to. We've grown apart. He's got this whole new life, with his EMT shit and his boyfriend, and I'm so far away now....." she trailed off.

"Boyfriend." was all he said. 

"Yeah, Mick. He's different now." she replied.

"I don't believe that shit for a second." Mickey said, too fast, to loud. He was sure Mandy winced on the other end of line. But he couldn't help it.

"Can you just check on him for me, and let me know. Don't tell him I'm asking though. Just wanna make sure he's taking care of himself."

On the other end of the line, Mandy smiled. Of course Mickey still loved Ian. Of course he would want to make sure Ian was okay. But there was no way he'd want anyone to know that shit.

"Of course I will, Mick. Consider it my gift to you. Happy birthday, big brother. I'll come see you next weekend. Love you."

"Yeah, yeah. You're still on the visitor's list, so I'll see you. Bye" and he hung up before she could say anything else. 

Gallagher was alive. Healthy. Maybe in love with a new dude. 

Okay. He could deal with that. He knew Ian wouldn't wait for him. Didn't love him anymore. Maybe never loved him at all. Mickey didn't know if was Ian's disorder that made him think he loved Mickey. They had just started getting really close when shit hit the fan with all that bipolar bullshit. Mickey had told Ian he loved him, but Ian had never said it back. So what if all that shit, the good, important things Mickey treasured between them had been some insane manic episode, and Ian had never loved Mickey they way Mickey loved him??

Mickey swallowed, putting the phone back in the cradle. He rubbed his tattooed hand over his face, willing the tears not to fall. He'd gotten good at masking his emotions over the years. Now was no exception. He schooled his face and got up from the phone. He was dead inside again. Just the way he wanted it. Needed it. There was no room for anything else in his life right now. 

 

He made his way back to the cell later that night, after a special showing of The Apprentice in the common room, and a few games of spades with this dude Damon and his gang buddies. It was easy pickings with them, and Mickey got two soups and a can of coffee off the game. Happy birthday to him, indeed.  
He made his way back to the cell block with minutes to spare. Jack was already standing by the door on the left. Mickey took up his spot on the right. The two guards came walking down the hall, clipboards in hand, checking off the inmates for nighttime headcount. After they were done he walked into the cell, ripping his sweatshirt over his head, Jack returned to his seat on his bunk. Just as he went to speak, there was a loud bell, and the cell door locked behind him for the night.

"Hey." he said.

"Hey yourself." Jack replied, smiling softly. "How was your birthday?" 

"Fucking shitty. Wanna end it on a high note?" Mickey asked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"Anything for you, Mick." Jack said, rolling off his bed and pulling his shirt over his head. "What do you want me to do for you?" 

"I want you to take off your clothes, all of them. And prep yourself for me. Put on a show. I need the distraction." Mickey said, pulling his own shirt over his head, and his sweatpants down. He sat back on his bed in his boxer shorts and got ready for Jack's little performance.

"Whatever you want." Jack breathed, heaving himself off the bed with a little flourish, the fag. He pulled his pants and his boxes off it one fluid motion. He looked out the small window in their door out of habit, and seeing no guards, as usual, he bent over his bunk, ass in the air, elbows on the mattress. He reached one hand back and ran a finger teasingly over his hole. Mickey smirked to himself, this kid was a porn star in his own mind. Jack reached over his bunk to the sink and stuck his finger in a tin of petroleum jelly, bringing his hand back to his ass. He dipped his index finger in, grunting quietly. You had to be quiet, even now, after lock down. He moved his finger in and out, looking over his shoulder at mickey, smiling softly. "Yeah?" he asked.

"Fuck yeah, Jack. Keep going. So hot." Mickey muttered, pulling his dick out, stroking it slowly.

"Yeah, yeah, okay." Jack sighed, adding a second finger. Mickey knew if this was Ian, bottoming for him ( which never happened, for whatever stupid reason Ian had) Mickey wouldn't be able to stop himself. He'd have to have his hands on him, in him. But this was Jack, so he didn't feel that urge to be close to him. He was more removed from it. So he sat on the bed and watched, enraptured nonetheless. 

Jack moaned lowly, fingering himself slowly but methodically. "You like this?" he asked. "You want this?" thrusting, twitching. "You want me?" 

"Fuck yes I do." Mickey stated simply. He got off his bunk and walked over to Jack, spread out and stretched for him, on his hands and knees, presenting to him. 

Mickey didn't feel anything but lust as he put his hands on Jack's ass, spread his cheeks out. His hole was stretched, shiny with lube, and just waiting for him. Mickey's dick twitched in anticipation. This wasn't what he wanted, but it would do. It would get him off good enough. He pulled down his boxers just enough to free his erection and wrapped one hand around his hard cock, and put the other on Jack's pale hip, and pushed forward, burying his dick as deep in the kid's ass as it would go. Jack gasped, and tensed, going rigid in Mickey's grasp. He let out a shaky breath and shivered. Mickey gave him that one moment to adjust, then he was relentless, pounding the kid's ass into oblivion. Quiet grunts filled the room as Mickey pushed and pushed. He watched his dick moving in and out of Jack's ass. Jack was keening below him, quietly mumbling "Yes, mick, yes."

He arched his back, digging his fingers into jack's hips, fucking him like he wanted to kill him. If the bed wasn't screwed to the wall, it'd be slamming against it. He looked down, watching his cock disappear into jack's tight hole. It was pornographic, but it did nothing for Mickey. Because it wasn't Ian.

Oh fuck.

Not now.

Focus, Milkovich.

Mickey steeled himself, focusing on the round tight ass that was currently on his dick. He pushed in, listening to the breathy cries falling from Jack's lips. Focusing on the feeling of being enveloped in tight heat. He was gonna make this kid come, then he was gonna come. Then he was going to bed and forget this godforsaken birthday.

"Come on man, come." Mickey panted, thrusting with the remainder of his energy. Jack finally reached his shaky hand up and wrapped it around his own dick, stroking erratically, out of time with Mickey's thrusts.

"Oh shit, Mick, that's it. Right there." Jack cried, coming all over his own bed. 

Mickey took that as his cue, and fucked into him twice more before he was shooting his load into Jack's ass. He stuttered a few times before pulling out, and walking over to his own bed.

"Thanks man, I really needed that." Mickey said, pulling the blanket over his body, and looking up at the ceiling.

"My pleasure." Jack smirked. "Oh, by the way, I've been wanting to tell you something." he added, picking nervously at his wool blanket.

"Well, spit it out, asshole."

"I'm, uh, getting released in a couple days. Going to a halfway house." Jack looked over at Mickey expectantly. Hopefully.

"What?" Mickey was floored. Jack was leaving? His roommate? His one consistent, halfway decent fuck buddy? His maybe friend? Well fuck....everybody leaves in the end. Mickey can't let himself forget that shit. 

"Yeah, I'm pretty excited." Jack said, lacing his hands behind his head and staring at the ceiling too.

"Well, don't go telling anyone else, man. You'll get shanked for sure. Nobody wants to see a dude bragging about getting released. Keep that shit to yourself."

Jack seemed to deflate at that, but nodded mutely. 

Mickey rolled onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow and looked at him . "Dude, I'm happy for you. Shit's awesome. Get the fuck out of here, and never look back." Mickey smiled.

"I'm gonna miss you" Jack whispered, refusing to look at him.

"Don't even start with that shit. You knew what this was. You're going to get out of here, get on with your life. You won't even remember me." 

Mickey flopped onto his back, staring at the ceiling. 'Nobody ever does' he added silently in his mind, and shut his eyes.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Three days later, Jack was gone. It was like he never existed. That's kind of the way Mickey felt about Ian now. Like he was a figment of his imagination. A beautiful hallucination. But Jack was replaced. Mickey couldn't go without a celly, after all. 

Damon, the dude he played cards with in the common room. The Mexican gang banger hit-man, according to the jailhouse rumors. The dude was huge. With skin at least four shades darker than Mickeys, a bald head, a tattoos over every visible inch of his muscled body. He had an imposing presence, to say the least. Mickey wasn't exactly excited for a new celly. Especially one he couldn't fuck. But there was nothing he could do about it, so he kept his trap shut.

"Hey man." Damon said, sprawling out on his bunk as Mickey came into the room.

"Hey." Mickey replied cautiously. He didn't know what to expect with this dude. They had been cool in passing, but living with someone was an entirely different animal.

"You a maricon?" Damon asked casually, looking Mickey right in the eye. 

"You mean a faggot?" Mickey asked, raising his eyebrows, incredulous that this was their first conversation as cellies. Who the fuck did this guy think he is?? Was he going to have to fight this dude? 

"Yeah man, a faggot. Not that I give a shit. It is what it is. My cousin likes dudes. It's whatever. Just heard around that you and that junkie kid had a thing." 

"Yeah, well, that's none of anybody's business, gossipy motherfuckers. He's gone now, so it doesn't fucking matter. And I'm not interested in your brown ass. No offense." Mickey replied warily. He didn't know where this conversation was going, but he wanted to be done with it right now.

"Ha." Damon huffed out a laugh. "Well, that's good to know, you seem like good people. and I know you're in the pharm game somehow. So I think this celly situation will work out just fine. As long as you can keep your hands off my dick."

"Not gonna be a problem, asshole." Mickey laughed. This turn of events might not be so bad after all. With Damon as his celly, he could expand his drug business that he had going with Cassie, Louis and Iggy. The Mexicans did not fuck around when it came to drugs, and they had a corner on the market in the joint as far as hard drugs go. If you were lucky enough to get your hands on coke or heroin inside, it came from the Mexicans. What Mickey had going with the benzos and percocets was small potatoes in comparison. But if they could pool their resources, they may be able to bring that shit to the next level. 

Mickey didn't even know why it mattered, anyway. What did he need all this money for? He had no one back home to send it to. Nothing to be saving for. Nothing to look forward to when he wrapped his bid. It all seemed so pointless. But the hustle was all he knew. It kept him focused, and it gave his something to occupy his mind. So he didn't get lost in his head. In thoughts of "what if" and "if only." He couldn't go there. So he kept himself busy, immersed in the inner workings and politics of the jailhouse drug game. It was safe, it was familiar. It was easy. And that's what he needed right now.

"Cool. I'll talk to Manny, and he'll get with Louis on the outside. We've got someone on the inside. Shit's almost too easy." Damon smiled, finally getting up to put his shit in his foot locker. He was folding his sweatshirts, arranging his toiletries, when it finally dawned on Mickey what he had just said.

"Someone on the inside?" he asked, getting up from his bunk and walking over to where Damon was crouched in front of his foot locker. "Like a prison employee?" 

"Yeah man, like a prison employee." Damon replied, rolling his eyes. "What else do you think I meant?" He smirked at Mickey like he was an idiot. 

Mickey was at a loss as to who the Mexicans could have had on the inside. He sat back down on his bunk and started going through the rolodex of prison employees he had in his head. None of the guards or support staff had the balls to pull this kind of shit. Maritza the nurse was Hispanic, but that was racist to just assume it would be her, right? Besides, she was such a straight shooter, Mickey thought. And nice. But nice didn't really mean much... he got lost in his mental monologue, until something Damon had said earlier came back to him. One of his buddy's name was Louis. Who did he know that was hooked up with a dude named Louis? He muddled some more until it occurred to him. No way. There's no way. 

He looked over to Damon warily.

"Cassie?" he asked. Damon looked up, taken aback by Mickey's assumption.

"What the fuck do you know about her?" Damon asked. It was Mickey's turn to smirk.

Of course it would be Cassie's Louis that was the outside guy in the Mexican's drug game. The prison microcosm was a lot smaller than Mickey had ever thought. So Cassie's abusive cheater boyfriend with the pill hookup was the same Mexican dude that got Damon and his homies the heroin and coke. Ha. Could shit be any more fucked up? 

Come to think of it, why had Cassie never mentioned this shit to him in the first place? Why was he stuck with the petty high school drugs, while the Mexicans got all the real money makers? 

Then it dawned on him. Mickey felt like an idiot. Of course the Mexicans would keep the real money makers for their gang buddies, and pawn of the kiddie drugs on the white kid and the chick. Fucking assholes. 

But it didn't matter either way. Mickey didn't ask for any of this shit. He got roped into it by Cassie in here, and Iggy on the outside. And now his new celly was neck deep in the shit too, and there was nothing for Mickey to do but jump right down there in the shit with him. He couldn't talk his way out if this if he tried. 

"Cassie is my source. And I'm guessing your outside guy is her man, yeah?" Mickey said, as nonchalantly as possible. The last thing he needed was for Damon to tell Louis about the shit he had going on with Cassie. Mickey didn't like her, not really. But he also didn't want her to get beat by her asshole boyfriend because of him. He was quite positive the idea of her cheating on Louis with an inmate would go over about as well as a whore in church.

"Huh. Louis said she had an inmate moving the pharms, never put two and two together. Well, this will work out a lot easier than I thought. Looks like it was meant to be, huh, cabron?" Damon laughed, like it was all too good to be true. Maybe it was. Mickey didn't like coincidences.

"I guess you could see it that way." Mickey replied, being over this shit right after it started. He threw on his sweatshirt and headed out of the cell. It was yard time in ten minutes, and he needed some fresh fucking air. 

 

The yard was full of inmates. Some working out on the concrete slab littered with picnic tables. They had removed all the outdoor gym equipment, saying it was a safety hazard. Like some asshole could pull a metal pole out of the ground and beat someone to death with it. Whatever.

So, dudes were doing push ups on the ground, and dips off the edge of the tables. On the far end of the yard there was a basket ball game going. Only blacks, as usual. The backboard was busted up, and there was no net on the twisted hoop, but the ball had some air, and the dudes seemed content enough with what they had. Mickey tore his eyes away from them. Staring was never good. 

Mickey made his way to the far end of the yard. He sat against the chain link fence, letting out a slow breath. His life was so fucked. He had thought it was a chaotic mess on the outside. The shit with Ian, his hell of a home life. Terry, Svetlana, the kid. All that shit had fucked him up something fierce. 

He had thought when he got locked up, things would be mundane, boring. Which they were, sometimes. But more often than not, chaos just followed him. It had been easier a few months ago. Before Cassie, before Damon. Before he started up with the drug dealing again. When the only thing he had to worry about was keeping shit with Jack quiet.

Mickey allowed himself a moment to wonder about how Jack was doing on the outside. Was he settling into his new life in the halfway house? Was he still clean? Did he even stay a single night in that place? Or was he back to his old ways, taking it up the ass for 40 bucks so he could put it all in his arm?

Mickey tried not to go there. He wasn't supposed to care about Jack. It was supposed to be an simple arrangement, a thing of convenience. But Mickey never did what he was supposed to. And he always ended up catching feelings when he didn't mean to. 

His thoughts were interrupted, as they usually were in this place, when a pair of uniform shoes came into his view. He looked up, seeing Cassie standing there. 

Fuck. This is the last thing he wants to deal with right now. He cursed his luck for the millionth time, desperately craving a cigarette. He'd have to scrounge one from somewhere later, non-smoking facility be damned. 

"Hey Milkovich." Cassie said, eyeballing him, sitting there on the ground, picking at the dead grass of the yard.

"Hey CO, how can I help you? I'm a little busy right now." he said curtly, waving his hand around the yard for emphasis. 

"So Louis said you and Damon are in?"

"Yeah, Cass, of course I'm in, I don't have much of a choice." Mickey mumbled. He looked up at her, shielding his eyes. The late summer sun was bearing down on him. He leaned forward and pulled his sweatshirt over the back of his head, settling it behind his back to act as a buffer between his t shirt and the chain link fence of the yard.

"I don't want to make you do anything, Mickey." she sighed. "It's just, you're already kind of in it, and Louis thinks it would be a good idea to get a white kid in on the trade, deal with the dudes that don't want to buy shit from brown people." she said it as a joke, but they both knew it was true. Racism was huge in prison, and guys would much rather stick to their own kind if they could help it. Mickey would make a killing selling to the white inmates that wanted drugs, but refused to stoop to dealing with the hispanics.

"Yeah yeah." he said. Mickey was under no illusion that he had a choice at all. He never did. He was used to being told what to do. He had resigned himself to that fact well before he got locked up. Growing up with Terry, you learned to put your own wants and desires aside, follow orders, keep your head down.

For the briefest of moments, he had been free of all that. He had been able to be himself. He had been able to make his own decisions, do what felt right, what felt good. But just as soon as it had came, that feeling was torn from him, along with the person who gave him that feeling. And here he was again, being pushed and pulled by outside forces. Being used, manipulated. It was like putting on an old coat. Ugly and worn out, but it still fit. He could live like this. He had no choice.

"Good, good. That's good Mick." she smiled. She almost looked relieved. Mickey wondered what she had said to Louis, if she had promised in no uncertain terms that her inside guy would be down for this new arrangement. Mickey wondered for the first time if Cassie would be in danger if he had said no. Suddenly he felt oddly protective of her. That was new. He didn't want to be the reason she got beat. Even after all she put Mickey through, he could see she was being used too. By Louis, and his gang. Maybe all the shit she pulled with Mickey was a way to give herself some control back, after losing it over and over at home. 

That didn't really make Mickey feel any better about his own situation, but he could understand it. She was a victim, so she victimized Mickey. It's fucked up, but he got it. He got it more than he wanted to admit. 

She finally looked around, probably realizing she had been talking to Mickey too long to appear normal, and she walked away without another word, leaving Mickey with his thoughts swirling in his head. Since when did he bother trying to understand other people? The inner workings of their minds. Why they did what they did.

Mickey didn't have to look too deep for the answer. It was Gallagher. Like it always was. It was being around Ian that had changed him. He wanted to know what made him tick. He wanted an explanation for all his erratic behavior, why he did the things he did. How he came to the conclusion that Mickey was worthy of love. That's how it started, and now that mindset seemed to leak into all his interactions with people. 

He wanted to know why Jack was a junkie, why Cassie stayed with her abusive boyfriend. He wanted to know why Damon was so hell bent just being nice to him. He wanted to know why Mandy never visited, why she put so much distance between them. If he could understand these people better, maybe he could be better for them. Better than he had been for Ian. And Mickey wanted to be better. Even if he still couldn't say it out loud.

Cassie was a victim, even if she would never admit it. And now Mickey almost felt bad for her. Almost. Cassie had wandered back over to him, looking down at Mickey still sitting on the ground, "Come on, kid, it could be worse." she sighed. "We're in this together, we'll look out for each other." she smiled. "Let's get a move on, yard time's almost over."

"Yeah, whatever." he finally said, getting up off the ground, dusting off his uniform pants. He followed a few steps behind.

"See you in the laundry tomorrow?" she asked, that mischievous smirk back on her face. Of course she would go there, just when Mickey was starting to soften to her. His blood was boiling instantly.

He gave her a curt nod, and walked off without a word. 'fucking bitch is using me in every way imaginable' he thought to himself as he stalked off toward the cell block.

 

It was much later in the evening, after chow and med line and showers, and a half an hour of watching telanovela with Damon and his crew in the common room, (he didn't understand a word of it) that Mickey found himself in the cell yet again. It was minutes until lights out, and Mickey was rolling around uncomfortably on his cot, Damon reading an old copy of OK magazine his girl had sent in the mail. The buzzer sounded and the lights cut off with a suddenness that Mickey could never get used to and they were both cast into utter darkness. 

"Well, fuck." Damon chuckled. Mickey heard the magazine being dropped to the floor. 

Mickey rolled onto his back, wishing Jack was there to take the edge off. Instead, mickey laid awake, staring at the ceiling as his eye adjusted to the dark. He laid there for quite a while, waiting patiently for Damon's breathing to even out, the tell-tale sign that he was out for the count. Mickey had had celly's that would jerk off right there while he was trying to read or some shit, but Mickey liked a little privacy when he was flying solo. 

He started out slowly, like he always did. Running his hands along his chest, not wearing a shirt to bed, just his boxers, which was required by rules. He ran his fingers over his tattoo, getting lost for a moment in regret, before getting back to the task at hand. He ghosted one hand over his left nipple, giving it a bit of a pinch. He bit his lip, to keep himself quiet. You had to master the art of silence to jerk off in jail.

He continued his southern track, running a flat palm over his stomach, down through his pubes, and finally settled on his half hard dick. He pulled at it experimentally, spreading his legs a little. The state issue boxers were so loose, he had plenty of room to play. 

He continued to stroke his dick, while his left hand moved around the other way, to rest against his entrance. It was too risky to actually finger himself with Damon right there. Jerking off was normal, all guys did it. But fingering your asshole with another dude in the room was too much, even if Damon said he was cool with Mickey being a queer.

But he could tease himself a little. He brought both hands back up to his face, licking a fat stripe up the right, and lubing up the middle finger of his left. He got back into position, and started over. Working his hand over his cock, and running the pad of his left middle finger over his asshole. It was good enough to get the job done. 

He started up a steady rhythm, looking over to make sure Damon was still out. When he was certain he was alone as he could be, he closed his eye and let his mind wander. He started out thinking about Jack, how the kid could take a dick. It was impressive, and Mickey had high standards. It was hot, but Mickey's mind wandered elsewhere. He'd been slacking as of late, letting his thoughts get away from him. Without Jack to distract him, it was easy fall back into dangerous territory.

But Mickey was weak, so he gave in. He thought of tight stomach muscles, clenching underneath Mickey as he rode his dick like a champ. A chiseled chest to scratch his nails down. A head of red hair, thrown back in pleasure. Green eyes clouded over with lust, staring into his eyes like he could see the whole world in them. Mickey could actually feel the ache in his thighs from bouncing up and down on that huge cock. Filling him up so good. Stretching him like nothing else ever could. Sweat dripping off his perfect body as his huge hands grabbed onto mickey's hips when he finally couldn't take the languid pace anymore and started fucking up into him from below. Always gotta be the dominant one, Mickey huffed out a laugh at the memory, and came all over himself in the same breath, shocking even himself with the intensity of his orgasm.

 

He was still quaking through the aftershocks as the shame started to descend on him. Here he was, more than a year removed from the damn kid, and still he invaded Mickey's most private moments. He sighed, and rolled over, cum cooling and drying on his stomach. What the fuck ever, working in the laundry was good for something after all. He wiped his hands on the shitty wool blanket, closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep.

 

He wasn't sure where he was, but it didn't feel right to Mickey. He looked around, realizing he was at home, in the Milkovich house on Trumbull. He sat on the couch, and someone came in from the kitchen. It was Jack. What the fuck was he doing here???

"Hey Mick, I was waiting for you. I made pizza bagels." Jack smiled, sitting on the couch, putting the plate on the table. He scooted closer to Mickey, taking his face in his hands, and moving in. Mickey jerked away. 

"I don't fucking kiss, asshole, you know that shit." 

"Oh mick, always so grumpy." Jack laughed, getting down on his knees in front of Mickey. "Well, it looks like I'll be doing all the kissing then." He giggled, unzipping Mickey's pants.  
It was all a blur, and Mickey couldn't keep up. One minute Jack was blowing him, the next he had Mickey bent over the couch, fingering him slowly. In the back of Mickey's mind he remembered he didn't let Jack fuck him. But it felt to good to make him stop. He started pushing back on the intrusion, wanting more. He could hear Jack sighing behind him. "So beautiful." he whispered.

"None of that faggy shit, man." Mickey groaned, pleasure growing in him. When Jack finally pushed his dick into him, Mickey felt relief settle over him. He needed this so bad. Even if it wasn't quite right....

But it felt perfect. Exactly what he had been missing. He got lost for a second there, when he heard it. "There you go, Mick, let me take care of you."

That wasn't Jack. Not at all. He looked over his shoulder and saw Ian looking back at him, love-struck and in awe. He leaned forward, wrapping one of his huge arms around Mickey's chest, pulsing deep inside of him. Deeper than anyone had ever gone. 

Mickey was confused, and a little scared. What the fuck was Ian doing here? How did they get here? But all of that was lost the second Ian whispered in his ear. "Always take it so good for me, Mick. Nobody will ever take it like you do. You're it for me." and he kissed his neck, and Mickey was just about to come, succumb to the mind blowing orgasm that only Ian could give him, when the door flew open and there was Terry, in all his raging, bloodthirsty glory. He was on Ian in an instant. Mickey couldn't do anything. He couldn't get up, he couldn't move. He was paralyzed, stuck in time. All he could do was watch as Terry beat the life out of the only man he'd ever love.

"Fucking faggot ass homo turning my kid into a fucking queer. I'll kill you. I'll fucking kill you both. I'm gonna make him watch, then I'm gonna kill him too. You hear me, faggot? This is all your fault." Terry bellowed out while he reduced Ian's (Jack's??) face into a bloody mess, holding him by the neck and pummeling his face til it was nothing. Mickey watched on in horror until it was done. Until his lover was dead. Terry released his grip on the boy's neck and the body crumpled to the floor, lifeless. Then he stumbled over to mickey and grabbed him by the hair. "Clean this mess up, faggot." he spat, pushing Mickey toward the body. Then he walked into the kitchen, like nothing had happened.

Mickey stumbled over to the body, cradling it in his arms. He wanted to cry, but he couldn't. He just looked at the face. You couldn't even tell who it was anymore. The pulpy mess where his face should have been was impossible to decipher. Was it Ian? Was it Jack? Mickey didn't know. He looked up toward the ceiling and let out a desperate cry.

 

Mickey jerked awake, almost falling off the cot. Damon was looking at him in the gray light of early morning. "Nightmare?" he asked simply. Mickey just nodded, embarrassed. Damon looked up at the ceiling for a minute before replying. "Yeah man, I get those sometimes. I've seen some fucked up shit in my day too."

That was all they said on the matter. Mickey was confused by the dream, to say the least. He only ever dreamed of Terry rarely, thank god. With all the fucked up shit that had happened to him, Mickey was sure he had a lot of bullshit buried in his brain. He didn't know if it was the meds they force fed him that kept it at bay, or if he was really finally going numb to it all. 

Either way, he supposed it was his own fault. For indulging in all this Ian thinking lately. Of course that would dig up all the bodies he was trying to keep buried. As usual, he only had himself to blame.....

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Things were somewhat normal for a while after that. As normal as it could be in prison. Damon and his guys had started using Cassie to mule the hard shit into the prison, as well as the pharmaceuticals Mickey usually peddled. Mickey started pushing the harder shit, like they had asked him to. It wasn't much different than what he had been doing before. Except people paid a lot more. Commissary, phone cards, whatever you could get your hands on. Mickey dealt only with the white inmates. And when they didn't want to pay, it was up to Mickey to fuck them up. He didn't mind, he had to stay on top of his game. And what better way to do so than cracking skulls every once in a while?

Which is how he found himself on cell block F, cornering a skinny blond kid in the back of the bathroom. 

"God fucking damn it, Eric. This is the last thing I want to be doing right now." Mickey sighed, twisting Eric's pinky finger at an odd angle. He had a hand wrapped around the back of his neck, pushing the kid's face into the cinder-block wall of bathroom. Eric's face twisted in pain, but he didn't cry out. He knew that would only make it worse.

"I know, Mickey, I know. My mom promised to put money on my books yesterday. But she didn't get around to it. She will. I promise, just give me a little time." he ground out, face going white.

Mickey eyed him disdainfully. He hated it when people made him do this shit. He liked a good fight. Not roughing up some pansy mamma's boy. What self respecting man made his mother cover his drug debts? Jesus H Christ. "See, Eric, the thing is, it's not up to me. And if it's not your ass, it's mine. You get on the phone with your fucking mother, and get that hundred dollars here, today. It's not a lot of money on the street, but in here it will get you killed. You understanding me?" 

"Yeah, Mickey, I get it, I'll call her now." Eric nodded enthusiastically.

"Nah, you call her after you get back from the infirmary." Mickey said.

"The infirmary? Why....." Eric didn't get to finish, as Mickey held onto the pinky with one hand, grabbed Eric's wrist with the other, and snapped the finger. There was a wet crack, followed by Eric's muffled whimpering, desperate not to draw attention to their altercation.

"Yeah, Mickey. right after." Eric mumbled, eyes wet, looking down at the floor. He cradled his broken finger to his chest.

"I'll come find you." Mickey said conversationally, although they could both hear the threat. Eric nodded, walking out of the bathroom and undoubtedly toward the medical wing. 

Mickey hated doing this shit. He had been doing it his whole life. Working for Terry, then Cassie, now the fucking Mexicans. When he gets out of this fucking place, he's never being anyone's errand boy ever again. That shit was done.

 

A few days later Mickey is coming in to the laundry for his afternoon shift. He has his personal mesh bag of laundry. He's allowed to do his separately, which is nice. He doesn't want his come stained shit mixing with a million other dudes' come stained shit. 

He smirks at the thought as he waltzes over to one of the smaller washers. He looks around for Cassie, scoping out the room of inmates for her bright red hair. He doesn't see her, though. He sees instead a jap guard that usually only works weekends. That's weird.

"Hey Wong, where's Mcfarland?" Mickey calls out when Wong get's close enough to hear. He's only half listening, Mickey can tell, eyeballing another group of inmates filling washers with sheets.

"What the fuck do you care, inmate?" Wong eyed him skeptically.

"Don't." Mickey replied. "Just curious, haven't seen her around here in a couple days. And she's way better company than your yellow ass." Mickey smirked. He moved over to one of the dryers and started pulling out bed sheets.

"Watch your mouth, you racist prick." Wong said with little heat. He knew mickey was just trying to get a rise out of him. 

"I ain't racist, man. I got a spick roommate." Mickey smiled innocently. Wong actually laughed at that. Shrugging, he said. "McFarland is gonna be out for a few days, says she's sick or some shit." And that was it. Wong went back to watching the other inmates working.

Mickey was a little put off by Wong's comment. Cassie never called out. She never got sick. Something didn't feel right. But what the fuck did Mickey know about it? He hardly knew Cassie at all. She was just a guard he did business with, and sometimes fucked. (as odd as that sounded to Mickey, even now.) So what the fuck did he care if she was sick with the flu? Or fucking cancer for that matter. It's not like they were friends. 

But they kind of were, and that's what pissed Mickey off. He realized suddenly, standing there with warm prison issue bed sheets in his tattooed hands, that he actually cared about her. How the fuck did that happen? 

When did he start to give a shit about the CO who caused him grief 24/7? It dawned on Mickey with increasing horror that he had gone soft. Full blown pussy. He hung his head, shaking it ruefully. 'Nice going, Milkovich, now she's in your head, and you'll no doubt end up sticking your neck out and getting fucked over for this. Smart move, asshole.'

He continued his work quietly. his mind stuck on Cassie, and what could possibly be wrong to make her miss a shift. She had told Mickey she was very proud of her five years of perfect attendance at the prison, the fucking dork. Something felt off to Mickey, really off. But it's not like he could go around asking about her. That would bring more attention to the situation, and that's the last thing anyone needed. It was bad enough he had asked Wong. So he stuck to what he knew, folding prison bed sheets with military precision. 

 

Two days passed, and Mickey didn't see Cassie, or hear anything about her. He had a strange feeling something was really off, so one afternoon, he came into the cell to find Damon sitting on his bunk, playing solitaire, smoking a hand rolled cigarette. He decided to bite the bullet and ask.

"Hey man, is your boy still with Cassie?" Mickey asked, putting his hand out for the smoke. Damon passed it to him without looking up. Trying to act casual, he pulled a drag off the cigarette flopping down on his cot and pulled out a magazine from under his pillow. Mandy had got him a subscription to "Men's Health" for his birthday a few months back, the bitch. "Prime spank bank material." she had giggled over the phone. 

"Uh, well man, it's kind of a shitshow. Not really supposed to say anything." Damon shrugged, putting a card down into one of his columns, finally looking up at Mickey.

Mickey passed the cigarette back and ran a tattooed hand down his face then through his hair, dropping his magazine to the cot and fixing Damon with an icy glare. "Well, that's not suspicious at all, asshole. I'm definitely not curious now." Damon gave him an unimpressed look, dropped his cards and swung his feet over the edge of his cot. He took one final drag off the smoke, and flushed it down the toilet. 

"Look man, you're good people. I like being cellys with you, and I don't want to brawl over this stupid shit." Mickey balked at him, who the fuck wanted to fight?

"I don't want to fight, asshole, what the fuck is this all about? All I asked was if you knew what the fuck was up with Cassie. How am I supposed to keep up my end of the deal when my supplier is nowhere to be fucking found?" he snapped.

Damon shook his head, putting his hands up in mock surrender. "Alright, cabron, relax. I guess you'd find out when she got back anyway. Don't know why you care so fucking much, it's just business with you two, right? You are a joto, after all." he smirked.

Mickey leveled him with a glare. "Okay asshole.... 1) I give a shit cuz she's a decent person, she watches my back in here and we help each other out and 2) Me being a fag has nothing to do with my capacity to form decent human relationships. Not everything is about sex."

"Okay, okay. Calm down. Didn't mean to insult your delicate ass. Damn." Damon smiled. "You get real riled up for a little dude."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Mickey barked. "Just fucking tell me what I want to know. Where the fuck is her stupid irish ass?" Mickey was, yet again, over this shit with Damon. He was an alright guy, but everything was like pulling teeth with him. He could never get a straight answer.

"Alright dude. Here's the thing, shit went south with her and Louis." Damon started. 

"Isn't shit always fucked up with them? He cheats and he beats her, doesn't get more fucked up than that."

"Oh shit, she told you?" Damon looked genuinely surprised. Mickey had inadvertently tipped his hand, revealing the depth of his relationship with Cassie to one of Louis's boys. Mickey liked Damon enough, but didn't know what he would do with that information, didn't know if he could trust him not to go filling Louis' head with all kinds of bullshit that didn't need to be there. Dude was a jealous prick as it is.

"Yeah, man." Mickey huffed. "We talk sometimes. We've been doing this dealing shit together a lot longer than you've been my celly. It's a civil arrangement. We're not bff's or anything, fuckface."

"I'm just surprised is all. She doesn't talk to many people. And I know her from the outside."

"Guess maybe she feels safe, you know, cuz I can't rat her out to her old man." Mickey reasoned. 

"Yeah, that makes sense. Not that I know what it's like to think like a chick. Maybe she talks to you cuz you're gay, like girl talk...." Damon mused.

"Did you seriously just fucking say that to me?" Mickey groused. "And quit changing the subject, what the fuck is wrong with her?"

"Motherfucker." Damn sighed, resigned. "She got fucked up real bad, man. Louis lost his god damn mind. All fucked up on coke. Started screaming at her that she was cheating, which is rich if I do say so myself, cuz he's got like three side bitches. From what I heard, he beat her up, real bad this time. Like, she's still in the hospital." 

Mickey was shocked. Of course he knew Louis smacked her around. He'd seen the bruises on her, where no one else could see. When he had her in a compromising position, he'd seen dark purple marks spanning her back, along her ribs. Yellowing bruises on her legs, finger shaped marks on her arms, hidden by her uniform sleeves.

But she'd never been beaten bad enough to end up in the hospital. Worry settled over Mickey like a wave, and he had to sit back down. "Shit." he muttered. 

"Yeah, shit." Damon agreed. "But Louis is in the clear, she won't talk to the cops. Smart girl, if you ask me. Would've been smarter not to cheat, but at least she's still breathing."

Damon's flippant tone irritated Mickey. "Well, as long as Louis is in the clear." he said sarcastically. "How do you know she was even cheating? And it wasn't just a paranoid coke hallucination?"

"Eh, who knows. Doesn't matter." Damon shrugged, like it didn't really matter. Like a girl getting beat didn't matter at all. Mickey felt sick. 

He got up off his bunk and headed out of the cell. "I need to make a phone call." he leaves without another word.

 

He's impatiently standing in line at the phone bank, waiting for some fat fuck to quit whining about something or another. If it were any other day, he'd smash the dudes face and take the phone out of his hand, but he needed to stay out of trouble if he wanted to be around the block when Cassie came back to work. He needed to see that she was okay with his own damn eyes.

But a little threatening never hurt. So he walked up to fatty and smooshed his finger right into his fat face. "Need this phone, lard ass." The dude looked like he was going to piss himself. 

"Gotta go. Send the money." he spat out quick, stumbling over his stubby legs to get out of the chair. 'Fucking pussy', mickey thought. 

He sat down in the vacated seat, and dialed his sister's number. It rang about a half dozen times before she picked up. The automated system greeted her, and she pressed one to accept the charges. "Yo, asshole, it's been a minute." she said by way of greeting.

"Hello to you too, slut." Mickey smiled. Though he'd never tell her, he missed his sister. "How's life in the land of the living?" he asked.

"Eh, you know, living the dream." she sighed. "I mean, it could be worse." Mickey didn't want to hear about her job or the Johns that went with it. Mandy assured him she was fine, better than fine, maybe even sorta happy. And that was about all either of them could ever ask for.

"So why did you call? It's not my birthday."  
She was right, he didn't call enough.  
"Ugh, shit's just tough around here. Remember that thing I wrote you about with that chick?" he asked, being purposefully vague on the recorded call.  
"Yeah, the bitch I wanna throttle cuz she's using your ass?" Mandy spat. The Cassie situation was a sore spot with her. She didn't like the idea of the CO taking advantage of her brother like that, even though he insisted that wasn't the case. Mandy wasn't an idiot.

"Yeah, yeah, her." Mickey ran a hand through his hair and switched the phone to his other shoulder. "Well, her man beat her pretty severely, and I know it's a prick thing to say, but it made me think of you."

Before he even got the sentence out, Mandy barked out a hard laugh. "Oh Mick, you are so sweet in your own sick, twisted way. It's so nice that domestic violence makes you think of me."

Mickey laughs at that too. "Just made me want to check on your stupid ass."

"Love you too." They don't say it much, but when they do, it counts. "So besides beaten women, what's going on with you?" she asked.

"First of all, that's a fucked up thing to say. And secondly, absolutely nothing, you dick. No one visits, no one writes. It's like I was dropped on another planet instead of another county." he meant for it to come out as a joke, but his words were laced with a bitterness that surprised even him.

"Oh Mick, I'm sorry. I know I was supposed to be up there for your birthday. And I fucking blew it. I had to go out of town on....business." Mickey knew that was code for a weekend long fuckfest with some married asshole who was willing to fork out the big bucks for the "girlfriend experience." Jesus fuck.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. It's not like I missed your cunty ass anyway." he put his head in his hand as started rubbing his eyebrows. He did miss her, though. A lot. 

"How's other things?" he asked, tiredly. They did this every time. Danced around dangerous topics. Mandy knew what to say.

"Actually pretty okay. She's staying with Kev and Vee. Like this weird cult like group sex thing. But Yevvy is well fed, and he gets along with their girls. He's doing good in preschool, if you can believe that shit. Knows all his colors. Don't know where he got his smarts from. Not from our side of the family, for sure."

Mickey allowed himself a moment to think of the kid. He still wasn't sure how, but he ended up giving a shit. Like a lot. It was a total fucking mess how he came to be, but that wasn't the kid's fault. Just like it wasn't his. or Lana's for that matter. He guessed the forced distance was a good way to give him a different perspective on it. Now that they were gone, he could tell that he cared. Because he missed them.

Too little, too late. That was Mickey's forte, after all. 

"You know, you could tell her to bring the kid down. I put them back on the visitor's list a while ago. Just never got around to writing her to tell her. Not that she would've gotten it, since she fucking moved and didn't tell me." he was a little put out that he was being left so far out of the loop. If he was ever in the loop to begin with.

"Sure Mick, I'll ask her to come down. I think Yev would like that. He misses you."

"Kid probably doesn't even know I exist." 

"Don't say that. He knows you. He loves you." 

Mickey didn't know what to do with that, so he changed the subject.

"What about him? You talk to him since we last spoke?" they both knew who he meant. 

"Actually yeah, Mick, I did. He's doing better than the last time I saw him. We actually started hanging out again. You know, when we have time." Mandy didn't really know what Mickey wanted to hear. If he was actually curious as to how Ian spent his time, or if his curiosity was limited to whether he was alive or not. "He has been seeing someone new, but I don't think it's too serious." she wanted to be honest, but she didn't want to twist the knife too much. 

"That's good, Mands. I'm glad you guys have each other." and he meant it. Nobody should ever feel as alone as he does. He had known Ian wouldn't wait. He needed too much affection to be alone. But maybe if it wasn't serious, Mickey still had a the smallest chance. There's no way Ian just didn't care at all anymore, right? Just then the phone cut in -----"you have one minute remaining on the call"-----

"Gotta go, I'll call you when I can. Ask Svet about visiting will ya? And you can bring your skank ass down here anytime too, you know." 

"Okay Mick. I'll come by. Take care of yourself."

"Yeah. you too. Be careful out there." and he hung up the phone. Talking to his sister always made him feel simultaneously better and worse. 

 

 

A few days later, Mickey was back at his laundry job, sorting laundry bags into their units by inmate number, when he looked up and saw Cassie. He felt an odd wave of relief flood his system as he schooled his features to look disinterested. He saw a fading bruise on her left cheekbone, and some healing, scabbed over scratches on her throat. That's all he could see, since her hair was uncharacteristically down for once. 

"Milkovich." she said by way of greeting. 

"Mcfarland." mickey replied. He continued his sorting, as she looked around to make sure no one was listening. "Did Damon tell you what happened?" 

"Only what he knew from his gang buddies. That Louis was coked out and lost his shit on you. Nothing out of the ordinary." Mickey didn't mean to sound like a dick, but he just came across that way sometimes.

"Yeah, that was part of it." she looked frail, like she could shatter into a million pieces at any moment. 

"Hey, Cass, what's up? I thought you were used to this shit. Said you could handle it." Mickey didn't agree with that particular line of bullshit, but it was not his place to say.

"It was different this time, Mick." she looked like she was on the verge of tears. She rarely called Mickey by his nickname. This must be serious.

"What the fuck happened, Cass? Tell me." Mickey picked up a bag and threw it in the appropriate pile. He needed to keep working, not attract attention to their conversation. 

"He was out of his fucking mind. Coked out so bad. Kept going on and on about how I fuck around on him, how he knows I'm a whore. I'm not. I swear. It's just him, and well, you. But that doesn't count, right? He cheats all the time."

Mickey didn't know what the right answer was, so he kept quiet.

"Then he's going on and on about how I belong to him, and things just got so out of control. He kept saying I was his property, he had to remind me what that meant," she had tears in her eyes now, and Mickey was starting to understand.

"Cass, he did more than beat you this time, didn't he?" Mickey knew the answer to the question before he asked it.

She just looked at her hands, clasped on the folding table, and nodded her head. "It was awful." she whispered. "It went on for hours. I was broken and bloody, inside and out. I just got out of the hospital two days ago."

Mickey was suddenly livid. He knew what it was like to be beaten for no reason, and he knew what it was liked to be raped. Cassie and him had never had a normal relationship, what the fuck it was between them, he didn't know.

But he did know that no one deserved this shit. Especially not someone like Cassie, who Mickey saw more as a confused girl, than the shrewd predator she played herself off as when they had first met. 

"What did you do about it?" Mickey asked. 

"Nothing. What was I supposed to do? Tell the cops? He'd kill me, or have his boys do it. You know that."

"Nah, Cass, they can't turn a blind eye to fucking rape. That shit is evil."

"As far as they are concerned, I belong to him. He can do whatever he wants, including beat me to death. It's just the way they think."

"Fuck that bullshit. We have to do something." Mickey's mind was already going a mile a minute. Cassie just gaped at him.

"Why do you want to help me, Mickey? I thought you hated me." 

"I never hated you, McFarland. I hated what you made me do. You used me. Even though you knew I hated it. And you know I'm not talking about pushing your drugs." Mickey couldn't look at her. He didn't like talking about himself. Feeling vulnerable was dangerous, even with Cassie. Hell, especially with Cassie.

"Jesus, Mickey. I know. I'm sorry. I was being such a bitch. At first I just saw you as an inmate. Someone I could use to escape my own shit and stick it to Louis at the same time. I never really stopped to think about what I was doing to you. And half the time I thought you were just giving me shit. I mean, you got it up just fine. I thought part of you wanted it too." She looked up at him, eyes pleading.

"No Cass," Mickey said. He put his hand down on the table and looked her right in the eye. "I had to pretend my whole life. If I couldn't get it up for a chick, my father would have killed me. I had to play it straight most of my life. That shit is hardwired survival."

Cassie looked like she wanted to throw up. "Oh my god. I'm just like him. I'm like Louis. I'm a fucking rapist." she wobbled a little like she was going to pass out, putting her hands down on the folding table to steady herself.

Mickey wanted to put his hand on her back, comfort her in some way. But it was too risky in the laundry room, with other inmates on the other side of the room. 

"Listen, Cass. You didn't fucking rape me. If I wanted to say no, I would have. I didn't enjoy it, but I consented. Don't beat yourself up, okay. It's not the first time I was in the position." he was only giving her half truths, but he couldn't find it in him to kick her when she was down. He had mixed feeling about the sex they had. He really didn't know if you could call it rape or not. It was a weird grey area that he didn't feel comfortable defining, even in his head. 

She still looked a little green, but she smiled faintly. "It's done, Mickey. I won't do that shit to you anymore."

Mickey just nodded. "Sure, Cassie. Thanks." The irony was not lost on Mickey, that Cassie had to be the victim of a sexual assault herself to understand that that shit wasn't right. 

She watched him sort laundry bags for another few minutes before he tossed the last bag into it's designated pile. He looked over to her and said,

"So how the fuck do we stick it to this prick? We're taking him down."

Cassie smiled, genuinely, for the first time during this conversation. "You do that, and I'll literally owe you my life."

 

 

Mickey assumed it would be up to him and Cassie to take Louis down. How, he didn't know. The douche bag was on the outside, and Mickey was on the inside. There was no way Cassie could fuck him up, and ratting him out to the cops was out of the question. The gang would end them both in a heartbeat. Cassie hadn't seen Louis since she got out of the hospital. So even if she did want to shank the prick, it was impossible to do so.

That was until Damon came stalking into the cell one afternoon about two weeks later, fuming. He looked like he wanted to punch someone. Mickey just hoped it wasn't him. Dude was big.

"What the fuck's got your panties in a bunch, dude? You look like you're going to pop a blood vessel." Mickey put down the book he was reading, giving Damon his full attention.

"Fucking Louis, man." 

Mickey perked up at that. 

"What about him?" 

"He fucking ratted us out, to the fucking feds." Damon spat, like the words were poison. 

"Huh?" Mickey was stunned. out of all the things Mickey thought Louis was, a rat was not one of them. 

"Yeah, he got busted in a hotel room with a couple kilos of H. I guess they were throwing serious time at him. We've got an source inside the Bureau that tipped us to it. Fucker snitched on the top guys. He's getting himself a sweet ass deal, while the real men rot in jail. Es un maldito informante. Motherfucker."

"Is he coming up here?" Mickey's wheels were already turning. This could work.

"You better fucking believe he is. None of the feds know we know he snitched. They're going to send him to slaughter and not even know it." Damon's face split into a murderous grin.

"I want in. On the hit." Mickey said without thinking. 

"Why the fuck would you want that? He's our guy, We're going to do it ourselves." 

"Nah, it makes more sense if I do it. Besides, he fucked up Cassie real bad. Raped her for like, hours, dude. She's super fucked up now." Mickey bit his lip, looking at the floor. It wasn't his story to tell, really. But if he could get Damon on board, they could all get a little revenge.

"Well, I'll have to run it by the boys. But it makes sense. He wouldn't even know who you are. You could probably get to him easier. "

"See, now we're speaking the same language." Mickey was nodding his head, pacing the room now. "We can do this. We can get away with it too."

"If we do this, I may have a way out for us." Damon spoke quietly, like he was talking to himself.

"What?" Mickey's head whipped up. "You mean, out out? Like out of this prison?"

"Yeah, I mean, The boys were talking about busting me out, going home to Mexico, you know, since I'm doing life and all. And Louis was saying we could use Cassie to help spring me.  
But now that Louis' time is limited, we're going to have to ask her ourselves. But I'm sure she'll do whatever the fuck we ask if we take care of her "problem." Damon even did air quotes. How he could be such an insufferable dork while plotting a murder, Mickey didn't know.

"You really think it could work?" Mickey didn't want to get his hopes up, but all of the sudden he was hot all over. The idea of being free of this place made him dizzy. 

Of course the first place his mind went was Ian. He could see Ian. He could go to Ian. He could ask Ian to join him, in Mexico. Jesus, the idea made his heart stutter.

"Hell yeah, cabron. I've got connections. It would be a win/win. Well, for everyone but Louis." and Damon laughed, loud and long. Mickey sniggered along, laying down on his bunk, and allowing himself to day dream for the first time in years.

 

 

It was easier to get Cassie on board than either Mickey or Damon had anticipated.

"Fuck yes." she said, standing next to them in the yard. Damon was doing pull ups on a random metal bar near the far wall, and Mickey was doing sit ups on the concrete below. None of them were looking at each other.

"Are you sure you understand the gravity of this situation?" Mickey asked, eyeing her, upside down from his position on the ground. "We are talking about killing your ex, and helping two convicts escape prison. This is not light work, Cass."

"Who the fuck do you think you're talking to? Louis got me this job as a plant. I've been here to sell drugs. Once he's dead, I can do whatever the fuck I want, go to San Francisco, live with my sister. See the fucking ocean. Fuck him."

Mickey smiled at that. He wanted to see the ocean too.

"Besides, you don't belong here, Mickey. You told me what went down to put you here. You stood up for someone you love, and got shit on for it. And now you want to stand up for me. Even though you don't have to. You're a good dude. Even if you don't see it, and don't want anyone else to know it." she smiled down at him.

"Whatever Cass, I already said I'd do it, you don't have to sweet talk my ass." 

"What about me?" Damon asked, pulling himself up once more. 

"You're a hit man, Damon, you belong here." she laughed. "But if you do me this solid, I'll look the other way. I'm not one to talk, since I'm kinda ordering a hit right now."

Damon laughed so hard at that he lost his grip, and went tumbling to the ground. Mickey lost it then too, busting out laughing so hard he could barely breathe. They must have looked strange to the rest of the inmates in the yard. Two grown men rolling around on the ground laughing, with the CO just glaring down at them.

 

The plan was deceptively simple. Damon's inside guy with the feds would give them the heads up as to when Louis was going to arrive at the prison. They'd have to wait until he was at chow, Mickey would cause a ruckus that would get all the COs and inmates distracted, while Damon did the actual hit. Mickey was pissed at first, he wanted to fucking kill that prick that hurt Cassie.

But the gang was inflexible on this point. Louis had fucked them, and it was blood in-blood out. So Damon had to do it. Mickey would end up in the hole for the stunt he was going to pull, but as soon as he got out, Cassie would play her part to get them out of the prison. The finer details of the escape had yet to be worked out, but Mickey had been assured the gang had it handled, and once it was closer to time, he'd be informed. 

The whole idea was insane. But Mickey was used to insane. This shit he could work with. As long as he played his part, and everyone else did too, he'd be lounging on a beach in Mexico, hopefully with a certain red head by his side. 

He wanted to call Ian. He wanted to tell him he was coming for him. Gauge his openness to the idea. But that was a no-go to the gang. He had to wait until they got out, and then they'd help him contact Gallagher. But only if he played his part, got Louis dead, and got out with Damon. That was a lot of if's. But for the first time in a long time, Mickey had hope. Real, actual hope.

 

 

He was in the library, looking at a travel book of Mexican beaches, when he saw the orange legs of a new inmate uniform walking toward him. He looked up, getting ready to tell the fresh meat to fuck off, when he came face to face with someone he didn't think he'd ever see again.

"Jack? What the fuck?" Mickey gasped. It was like he'd seen a ghost. It had been well over six months since Jack had been released on parole to the halfway house.

"Hey Mick." Jack laughed, flopping down in the chair across from him. "Good to see you too." Jack didn't look so hot. He had lost weight, and his skin was paler than usual. He had dark bags under his eyes, and his hair was longer than Mickey had ever seen it, shaggy and unkempt, curling around his ears. 

"What the ever loving fuck are you doing here, man? I thought you were at the halfway house." Mickey closed his book and gave Jack all his attention.

"Eh. I fucked up, obviously." Jack rolled up his uniform sleeves, showing Mickey his arms, old and fresh track marks littering the surface of the skin.

"Jesus, I guess you did." 

"Broke parole, went on the run. Got caught up in hooking again. Got busted, and here I am." Jack sighed, running a hand through his messy brown hair. "But I just got a work up at the free clinic, and I'm clean. So I figured I'd come find you and see if you wanted to welcome me back." 

Mickey smiled. It'd be nice to get his dick wet. He had so much crazy shit going on these days, it would be nice to get lost in the physical for a minute. 

"What unit are you on?"

"Same as before, but I'm bunking on the second floor, on the opposite side of the unit." 

"Perfect. Meet me in the showers after dinner. 6:30." 

"Sounds like a plan." Jack smiled again. "You look good, Mick. Been working out?" 

"You don't have to flirt with me, asshole, I'm already going to fuck you." Mickey said, getting up to put his Mexico book back on the shelf. 

"I'm just being nice, Mickey, you should try it some time."

"Yeah, well, as good as it is to see your stupid ass, it's pretty shitty you got yourself thrown back in this cesspool. I thought you said you were going to quit it with that dope shit." 

"Oh, Mick, you care." Jack beamed, his whole face lit up. "You actually give a shit about me. That is so sweet."

"Shut the fuck up, asshole. Just cuz I'm glad you're not dead, and pissed you fucked up--again--, doesn't mean I want to marry your ass. Now get the fuck out of my face. I'll see you later."

Jack just smiled, nodding his head. 

Mickey left the library, heading toward his cell. The last thing he wanted was to add Jack back into his increasingly chaotic bullshit existence. But there was no way in hell he was going to turn down a perfectly decent lay. He'd just have to watch himself around him. Because with all this murder plotting and escape plan hatching, he didn't need Jack getting all into their business. The less people that knew the better, and three was already too much.

Mickey sighed, scrubbing his face with his hands, and headed back to his cell. He needed to lay down for a minute.

 

It was mid afternoon when a CO walked up to him in the common room, watching Jerry Springer with a half dozen other inmates. "Milkovich, you gotta visitor." 

Mickey looked up at the CO in disbelief. "Excuse me?" 

"You heard me, inmate. Get the fuck up." 

Mickey scrambled to his feet and followed the CO out of the unit and down the hallway to the visitor's room. He made his way down the long room, a bank of cubicles along the left wall. He looked into each small window, looking for his mysterious visitor. Each cubicle was empty, until he got to the second to last spot. There, he found Mandy sitting.

The first thing Mickey noticed was the blond hair, pulled up into a messy high ponytail. She had dyed her hair blond and was wearing a yellow sundress, of all fucking things. She looked healthy, happy even.

Mickey sat down and picked up the receiver. "Hey." he said.

"Hey Mick." Mandy replied, smiling. 

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Told you I was gonna come visit."

"Yeah, but you say that shit all the time." Mickey was confused, was something wrong?

"Yeah, well, I just wanted to talk to you in person." she fiddled with the cord of the phone, not really meeting his gaze.

"Jesus Christ, Mands, spit it out." Mickey was getting nervous.

"Svetlana doesn't want to bring Yev up. Thinks he's going to be confused and scared. Says it's not a good idea. For him." she blurted it all out in one breath. She still wouldn't look at him.

"Oh." was all he said. He had thought maybe it would go this way. He didn't expect to be so disappointed, but he was. He felt like he'd been punched in the gut.

"Can I write?" he asked, hopeful still.

"She doesn't think that's a good idea either. Thinks it will confuse him." 

"You keep saying that. Confuse??? What the fuck does that mean? I'm his fucking father. First she wants me to give a shit, now that I do, she want to pretend I don't exist? What the fuck." 

"She doesn't want Yev exposed to this shit, Mick. It's understandable. He's a fucking toddler." Mandy was pleading, even though she sounded exasperated. 

"Fine, what the fuck ever. She can go fuck herself. I guess I'll just disappear, like everyone wants me to. Nobody wants me to be part of their life. I won't be."

"Mick, it's not like that. You know that." 

"Nah, Mands, I don't know shit. You never come around, never write. The mother of my kid has pretty much cut me out of his life. And Ian doesn't even remember my name. I've got nothing. And you don't understand that shit. So don't tell me I don't get it. I see it all clear as fucking day."

Mickey hung up the receiver and left his sister gaping at him, open mouthed and in shock. He didn't look back once as he stalked out of the room.

 

After dinner, Mickey went straight to the shower. The place was empty after meal time, so it was the best time for this kind of rendezvous. He walked to the back of the shower room, where the handicap stall was. It was the only stall in the room, with a door and everything. There were no handicap inmates on their unit right now, but it was required by law. 

So mickey guessed he could thank the lawmakers of Illinois for giving him a perfect fuck spot. 

Jack was in the stall already. The water was running down his body, hair wet and matted against his head.

"I didn't think we were going to actually shower." Mickey laughed, looking Jack over. 

"Eh, two birds and all that shit." Jack said over his shoulder, not even bothering to look at Mickey.

"You ready to go, or what?" Mickey asked, pulling his shirt over his head and shedding his uniform pants.

"Yeah man. Prepped myself before you got here. Save time or whatever."

"Good. I need this shit right now. Fucked up day."

"Aren't they all?" Jack asked, finally turning around to look at Mickey. He had a devious smile on his face, and he was stroking his hard dick with his left hand.

"Yeah man, they are." Mickey laughed. He did something he usually didn't do. He took his hand, and ran it down Jack's body, from his shoulder to his hip. Jack leaned into the touch, groaning low in his throat. Mickey put a strong hand on his shoulder and spun him around, pushing him into the tiled wall face first, with a bit of force. Mickey wrapped his hand around his own cock and started stroking it. "Gonna fuck you hard, man. Need to let out some frustration."

"Yeah Mick, you can do that. I'd like that a lot." Jack sighed. He dropped his head against the tile of the shower, and pushed his ass out towards Mickey. "You always fuck me so good. Missed it while I was gone."

"Fuck off you missed anything from this place while you were gone, especially me." Mickey looked at Jack's wet body, writhing and arching toward him. He fisted his cock faster, anticipation building. He needed this. Needed to get out of his head, and into that ass.

Mickey put one hand on Jack's hip, and used his other to press the blunt head of his dick against Jack's entrance. Jack stuttered out a breath as Mickey pushed in. Slow. So fucking slow. He could feel everything. The hot skin under his hands, Jack's inner walls clenching and releasing around his cock. The lukewarm water trickling down on them.

"Oh god." Jack whispered. Mickey gave him a half a second to adjust before he picked up the pace. They still had to be quiet. Anyone could come in at any time. But Mickey wasn't joking when he said he was going to fuck him hard.

He started slamming into him, pulling Jack back onto his cock by his hip and shoulder. Jack was whimpering, clawing desperately at the tiled walls, trying to find purchase. Mickey closed his eyes and let his head fall back. His mind was blank, and that's exactly what he had wanted. Nothing existed in that moment except for the warm tight heat enveloping him, and the tightening in his balls.

Mickey slammed into Jack a few more times, then stopped, emptying into him as he came silently. Jack was still jerking his dick as Mickey pulled out of him, and he came all over the wall a minute later. 

"Couldn't even wait for me? Or warn me you were gonna come?" Jack asked disbelievingly.

"Sorry dude. Not really in the mood to be a considerate lover right now."

"Considerate lover? Where'd you get that bullshit? Jack asked, grabbing his towel, and tossing Mickey his.

"Mandy sends me Cosmo." Jack burst out laughing. "What? Fuck you. There's always great tips about how to give dudes amazing orgasms. I'll lend you one, you could use some pointers."

"Hey man, go to hell. I literally just gave you an orgasm."

"Oh fuck off, I did all the work." 

"Yeah, yeah." jack laughed. "I gotta go man. Med line."

"Alright, man, guess I'll see you around." Mickey was already putting his uniform back on.

"Yeah, come find me if you wanna fuck again. I'm always down for that."

Mickey left him in the bathroom, and started walking back towards his cell. That fuck had managed to take his mind of his shit show of a life for all of about ten minutes. As soon as he came down off his high, all the things he was trying to escape came crashing back down on him. 

He had nothing left in Chicago. Since he got locked up, he found out who really had his back. And the answer to that question was simple: not a single fucking person. Svetlana had cut ties with him the second she couldn't make money off his ass anymore. She took his kid and disappeared with her new "family". Who knows if Yev even remember who he is.

His sister had her own life, and it felt like she didn't care to make room for Mickey anymore. He didn't want her to visit every week, or even call. But it would be nice to hear from here more than on his birthday, or if someone died. He didn't even know where any of his brothers were, having not heard from them since his before his sentencing.

And Ian, fuck, he had gutted Mickey, before and after he got locked up. Mickey knew he wasn't perfect. He'd done plenty of fucked up shit to Gallagher during the time they knew each other. But he had tried his best to change for Ian. To be better for him. He came out to his father for him, for fuck's sake. He got pistol whipped and shot, twice, for him. 

He did his best to take care of him when he got sick, love him through all that madness. Even when he cheated on Mickey, Mickey tried his best to see it for what it was, manic behavior. He looked up that bipolar shit, learned everything he could. Trying to be there for Ian, trying to be better for him, take care of him. Love him.

But none of that was enough for Ian. It felt like the minute Mickey was finally somewhat comfortable in his own skin, felt safe letting his love for Ian show, Ian threw it all back in his face, and turned his back on him.

It felt like the worst betrayal. He took Mickey's heart, opened it up, breathed life into it, only to mutilate it beyond repair. He was sure he'd never love anyone again like he loved Gallagher. He'd be lucky if he'd ever love anyone again period. He wasn't sure he had the energy to try. Or the fortitude to survive again, when it inevitably fell apart. Because of course Mickey could never keep something that beautiful. 

Mickey made it back to his cell, after hitting the med line for his sleeping pill. He was done with the day. He took his uniform off, and flopped down on his bed. 

The sooner they took care of Louis, the sooner they'd be able to leave all fucked up shit behind. With or without Ian, Mickey was starting over. 

He smiled to himself and closed his eyes. For the first time in a while, he sleep was dreamless and peaceful.

 

 

A week later, Mickey got word from Damon that the plan to off Louis was in motion. He was excited and nervous, listening to the plan, as he and Damon played checkers in their cell.

"So it's easy, yeah. During dinner, not lunch cuz that rambo prick CO works. Thinks hes a fucking navy seal instead of a rentacop....anyway, during dinner, you're gonna need you to start a fight. Doesn't matter with who, just make a fucking scene. I know you know how to fuck a dude up. So just be your charming self."

"That's it? Then what?" Mickey asked, moving one of his pieces. "King me, motherfucker." he laughed. 

"Tu jodido tramposo." Damon muttered, putting a checker on mickey's piece. "Then we will cut that snitch motherfucker when all the COs are busy wrangling your crazy ass. He'll be dead before anyone even notices he bleeding."

"Huh. Sounds easy enough. what's the next part, then? Getting Louis is important to me too, but let's get serious, the second part is what makes me nervous."

"Well, that's where Cassie comes in. It's not gonna be easy, but I think we've got it figured out. You'll be in the hole for who knows how long, but once you get out, we'll set up a day to make the break. Cassie says the best time to do it is during your shift at the laundry. I can get down there, I have a CO on the payroll too. We've got some guys coming in, in a vendor truck, delivering detergent or some shit. Cassie's going to buzz them in, and we're just gonna jump in the back of the van, while it's backed up on the loading dock. Pretty simple, actually."

"Sounds too good to be true, dude. What about the cameras? What about Cass? Aren't they going to know it was her? Where the fuck are we going to go from there?" Mickey's thoughts were spiraling again.

"Chill, dude. We've got it covered. One of our dudes on the outside is some kind of mad hacker or whatever. He's going to hack the surveillance cameras and give us about 60 seconds to get to the van, so as long as we stay on schedule, nobody will know we're even gone til we're miles away."

"Okay, I guess I'll just have to trust you. Which I don't do, so you better not fuck me. You may be doing life, but I have a chance at parole in five years, so if we get caught my sentence will be doubled, and I may as well hang it up if that happens. I can't do 30 year, man. No fucking way."

"You worry too much, cabron."

"This is my life, motherfucker. It may not be much, but it's the only one I've got, so I'd like to not fuck it up any more than I already have."

"You'll be laughing about this shit when we make it to the beach, dude. All this shit will just be a memory." Damon folded his hands behind his head and smiled.

"Alright, motherfucker, tell me about this beach." Mickey laughed, moving his last piece into place. "And I win." 

Damon scoffed, "Cheater." 

"How do you cheat at fucking checkers?" Mickey laughed.

"Whatever, pendeho." Damon sulked, but began telling Mickey about the beauty of the Mexican beaches, regardless.

 

 

It took another week before the time was right to do the hit. Mickey was surprisingly calm, considering what was about to go down. He made his way down to the chow hall. Jack was talking to him, but he wasn't really listening. He was mulling over the finer details about his part in the plan, going over each part again and again. Even though all he had to do was cause a distraction, he still wasn't sure how he was going to do that. The easiest way would be to start a fight. But he wasn't all too keen on fighting some random asshole. That's a sure-fire was to get fucked up.

But he couldn't think of anything else. He could puke on the table or fake a seizure, but to get all the guards' attention on him, and off Damon and his crew, he had to do something big. So a fight it was. But he couldn't shake the weird feeling he had in his gut. This wasn't going to be as easy as Damon had made it out to be. Shit was going to get out of control.

But Mickey pushed all those thoughts out of his head, focusing on the job he had to do. This was his only chance to get out, his only chance to see Ian. Even if it was only one more time, it would be worth it. 

 

"You're not even listening, asshole." Jack huffed, pushing Mickey into the wall as they walked. 

"Eh, watch it, dick. I was too listening." Mickey growled, rubbing his shoulder.

"Then what did I just say??" Jack asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"What the fuck ever." 

"I knew you weren't listening." Jack sighed. "I said I got into the treatment program the prison offers, and if I complete it, I may get another chance at the halfway house."

"Huh? So you fuck up, come back, and they're going to give you another chance? Since when do they do that shit?" 

"I guess the state is trying this whole treatment instead of punishment thing. I'm a non-violent offender, so they want to rehabilitate me, instead of punish me." Jack said, obviously quoting his counselor. 

"Well, I'll be damned." Mickey said. "If you get a chance, dude, take it. Get your shit together. You don't belong in here. You're way too soft."

"You like me soft." Jack whispered, smiling.

"Nah, I like you hard, kid, you know that." Mickey muttered, knocking shoulders with Jack.

Jack laughed, and they made their way into the chow hall.

"Hey man, I can't sit with you tonight." Mickey said, scanning the room for Louis.

Jack turned to Mickey "What? Why not?"

"I got some shit I gotta take care of." Mickey said, trying to be as ambiguous as possible.

"Okay." Jack looked confused. "Well, will I see you later? We could, you know...." he trailed off, giving Mickey the eye. 

"I don't think so dude. I don't think i'll be free."

"Huh?" 

"Seriously Jack, just let it go, okay? I'll talk to you soon." Mickey said, walking off. Jack watched him go, shaking his head.

Mickey went through the chow line with the other inmates, and once he got his food, he made his way to a table full of other white guys. From this spot he could see Louis, Damon, and their friends at a table a few rows over. He could also see Jack on the other side of the room, sitting at the table him and Mickey usually share with some guys they are cool with. This was the perfect spot to watch it all go down, and hopefully keep an eye on Jack too.

If this shit turns into a riot, Mickey was hoping to keep Jack as far away from it as possible.

A few minutes passed, Mickey picking at his cold chop suey with his orange plastic fork. He made eye contact with Damon across the room. Damon nodded minutely, the signal Mickey had been waiting for.

Mickey took a deep breath and stood up. The poor schmuck sitting across from him looked up. The kid was maybe 20 years old, skinny, with huge bags under his eyes. He looked dead tired.

"What the fuck are you looking at, asshole." Mickey yelled, loud enough for the whole room to hear.

"Me??" the kid asked, clearly taken aback.

"No, your imaginary friend, douchebag." Mickey growled.

"Nothing man, I don't want any trouble." the kid said quickly. He looked scared out of his mind. Mickey almost felt bad for him. Almost.

"Well, now you've fucking got trouble." Mickey launched himself across the table, grabbing the kid by the neck and punching him square in the face. The kid immediately crumpled to the ground with a whimper, trying to shield his face from Mickey's onslaught. They were on the ground now, the kid in the fetal position, and Mickey crouched over him, landing punch after punch to the kid's head. 

As soon as they hit the tile floor, the chow hall erupted into chaos. Just as Mickey feared, a riot was breaking out. Men were everywhere, punching and kicking anyone they could get near. It was like everyone in the room took Mickey's outburst as a chance to get on whoever they had beef with.

Mickey landed another punch in the kid's stomach, and the kid started crying. Mickey backed off a bit. He'd done his job, he'd given Damon and his guys a distraction. Hopefully now they would get Louis, and they'd be able to move on to part two of the....

Before Mickey could finish his thought, there was a searing pain in his side. He'd gotten distracted by his thoughts, and the kid under him had pulled a small shank from his sock, and stabbed Mickey in the side.

'Of course.' Mickey thought 'I pick the scrawniest asshole in here, and he's packing a fucking shank.'

Mickey fell off his victim, clutching his side. Blood was flowing through his fingers as he tried to apply pressure to the wound.

"Are you fucking kiddin me right now? Fucking stabbed me, you little prick?" Mickey gaped at the kid. The kid looked terrified, still clutching the shank in his left hand. He had a bloody nose, and the whole front of his uniform was drenched in the stuff. 

"I...I....didn't mean to." the kid stammered. "I'm sorry, don't kill me." 

Mickey got to his feet, shaking his head. This kid was a fucking trip. Still holding his side, he delivered a few hard kicks to the kid's stomach, cuz fuck him, seriously, and started to walk away.

He didn't get far, because now the whole room was swarming with SORT team members, with their riot gear and peeper spray. They forced their way into the fray, spraying indiscriminately.

"On the ground!!! Get on the fucking ground!!!" one screamed, ramming into a group of inmates with his shield.

Inmates started falling to the ground, face down, lacing their hands behind their heads.

Mickey wobbled to his knees, right next to the nameless prick that had stabbed him, and tried to get on the ground. Still clutching his stab wound, he was having a hard time maneuvering down to the floor. He was getting dizzy. He made his way to his knees shakily, in a slowly growing puddle of his own blood. 

"Milkovich? Are you fucking stabbed?" one of the SORT team guys asked, walking over inmates sprawled on the ground. 

Mickey looked up at him, sarcastic reply ready on his lips, and plummeted face first onto the floor. Everything went black.

 

 

It was dark when Mickey came to. He was obviously in the hospital wing. He could tell by the fact that the bed he was in had a cotton blanket, instead of the wool ones they have on the unit. The next thing he noticed was the IV coming out of his right hand, and the handcuff on his left wrist, chaining him to the bed rail.

"Fuck." he croaked. He wanted to rub his face, but the tubing to his IV was too short, and he couldn't reach. 

Being that he was in the hospital wing of the prison, there was no call button, no pitcher of water, and definitely no TV. He looked around. It was a small single room, instead of the usual dorm style they have in the rest of the hospital wing. He idly wondered if that meant he was worse off than he'd originally thought.

He'd been stabbed before. At least twice. He didn't feel any worse than last time....

Just as he was thinking this, the door opened, and Martzi came in.

"Jesus, Milkovich, what have you gotten yourself into this time?" she smiled, walking over to his bed.

"Eh, you know how it is, Martzi. Got into it with some asshole, and he was obviously too much of a pussy to fight like a man. Got me good." Mickey looked down at his stomach. It was covered by a hospital gown, so he had no idea how bad it was.

"Yeah, well, you could have died. That shit was deep. They had to stitch you up. You're pretty lucky that little tweaker didn't hit anything vital. You should be good to go in about a week." she smiled. She walked over to his IV with a syringe, and put some medicine into his IV. The liquid was cool, and his whole arm broke out in goosebumps.

"What the fuck was that?" he asked, feeling the medicine take affect immediately. He could feel it coursing through his veins, causing a warm flush to break out on his skin. He could taste the chemicals in the back of his throat, and he was instantaneously high. Wasted. Feeling no pain. 

"Morphine, my friend. I think you've earned some of the good stuff." she laughed.

"I'm not complaining." 

"Do you wanna know how the other guy is doing?" she asked.

"Don't really care."

"Well, he's got four broken ribs, a concussion, and a fractured eye socket." 

"Fuck, didn't mean to fuck him up that bad." 

"Yeah, well, you both could be facing assault charges after this little stunt." she chided.

Mickey honestly didn't care about new charges. He didn't plan on being around to answer to them.

He looked over to where she was writing something in his chart, and cleared his throat. He had to ask.....

"It was kinda a melee down there before I went out. What the hell happened?" he asked, trying to sound noncommittal. He wasn't sure how he was doing, since he was so wasted all of the sudden. 

"Oh Jesus, Mickey, I can't believe I forgot to tell you. You know Louis Diaz, he's boys with your roommate, Damon, right?"

"Yeah, I think i know who you're talking about." he hedged.

"Yeah, well, he must have pissed someone off, cuz during the chaos in the chow hall, someone stabbed him right in the neck!!!" she said, making a stabbing motion with her hand for affect.

"No shit." mickey said.

"Seriously. He bled out right there on the floor, nothing we could do up here. And the kicker is, nobody saw anything, the CO's didn't find the weapon. It's like a total mystery." 

"You don't say." mickey tried not to let on how relieved he was. The plan had worked. Louis was dead. 

Mickey could see the light at the end of the tunnel. He was going to get out of here. He was going to see the fucking ocean. He was going to see Ian. Finally. As the medication took full effect, he laid his head back down on the pillow, and let thoughts of Ian comfort him as he drifted off.

 

A week after he woke up in the hospital wing, he was transferred to solitary for 9 days. The fight in the chow hall was going to bring him an assault charge on the tweaker that stabbed him, or so they told him. He couldn't give a fuck less about that shit. He wasn't gonna be here.

But sitting in solitary for days on end, alone with your own thoughts can make you start to wonder about some crazy shit.  
What if Damon left without him?  
What if Cassie pussied out at the last minute, and turned them all in? Would Mickey be an accessory to premeditated murder?  
What if all this shit went off without a hitch, and Ian wouldn't even see him? What if he was so in love with this prick new boyfriend, he wouldn't even spare Mickey a goodbye? What if he never even got to see him before he left forever?

These were the thoughts that were assaulting him, while he laid on the metal bunk in solitary. That's all there was in there. Metal bed, metal toilet, metal sink, all attached to the wall. No blanket, no nothing. Twice a day they came by to pass food through the slot. No one ever opened the door. You never even saw another human face, or heard a voice. Unless it came from your own head, of course.

Solitary had a way of bringing all your demons to the surface. Mickey was systematically going over all the shitty things he had ever done in his life, to bring him to this place right now. It was a long, dark road. And he was feeling pretty fucking low at the moment. 

He was currently going frame-by-frame over the moment Ian confronted him at the abandoned buildings. Right after that hellish afternoon with Terry and Svetlana. After his-- god fucking damn it he hated that word-- rape. He was so plastered, everything melting into some kind of alcohol induced nightmare. He just wanted to forget, block it all out, but Ian just had to be there, had to push him. he just wasn't ready. 

\----you're gay, and you love me-----just admit it, just this once-----

And Mickey had kicked him right in the face, broken one of his teeth. Looking back on it now, he wasn't trying to hurt Ian. He was trying to destroy the part of himself that loved him. 

'You are suck a fucking prick, Mickey. No wonder you don't have a single damn person in your life anymore.' He wiped the silent tears off his face, and tried to sleep. God only knows what time it is, or what fucking day for that matter. 

All he knows is, if Damon doesn't hold up his end of the bargain, if he doesn't get out of this nightmare once he wraps this solitary bid, he may have to take matters into his own hands. There's no way he can escape the prison on his own, not to the outside world, anyway, not back to life on the street. But he could escape. Permanently. 

With nothing out there to hold on for, nothing to go back to, he could pull the ultimate escape. No one would even notice, probably .  
'jesus, mick, you gotta get outta solitary, suicidal ideations are not a good look on you, kid.'

It was jack's haughty voice in his head that pulled him out of his morbid fantasies, and he finally fell asleep, whatever fucking time it was. 

Days later, or it could have been weeks or year, Mickey had no idea, the steel door slid open, and there was Fuentez, one of the guards you were only familiar with if you did a lot of time in the hole. "Hey Milkovich, get your Ukrainian ass up and out of my cell, you're going back to pop." he hitched his thumb over his shoulder, making a motion for Mickey to move it.

Mickey stumbled off the bunk, not having used his legs that much for the better part of the last week, he felt a little wobbly. He was still recovering from the stab wound, if he was being honest, and hadn't see a doctor or nurse since they sprung him from the hospital wing. He absentmindedly wondered if that was normal, as he followed Fuentez off the solitary block and back to his unit. 

Once he made it back to his block, the first place he went was the bathroom. Just to get a glimpse of his ugly mug in the mirror. He had an idea of how it looked after the fight, but hadn't had a chance to see it with his own eyes. 

He looked haggard. His hair and his beard were longer than he liked, making him look slightly homeless. He had a fading bruise under his left eye, and a cut above his top lip. But he'd had much worse, and it was all on the tail end of healing now. He was actually pretty pleased, all things considered. 

Fuentez had informed him it was midday when he took him out of the hole, so he made his way to the yard. If his intuition was on point, he'd be able to find everyone he was looking for in that one spot at this time of day. He forwent a shower for the moment, instead choosing to figure out what the fuck went down while he was indisposed. Although he probably reeked, but honestly, who the fuck was he trying to impress?

He walked out the door, flashing the guard his prison ID, and made his way to the far corner of the yard, where the chain-link fence surrounded the perimeter.  
Standing there was Damon and his two buddies Miguel and Julio. Part of the gang and part of the plan to spring them, hopefully.  
Damon looked up and saw Mickey, his whole face splitting into a massive grin. "Mickey!!" he yelled, jumping to his feet and pulling Mickey into a quick hug, shaking him roughly with a hand on his shoulder. "Dude, you really came through for us, did us a solid, man. Shit went off without a hitch." Damon boomed, then silenced himself quickly, looking around like an idiot.

"Not suspicious at all man, super cool." Julio snarked from behind him. 

"Whatever man." Damon looked dejected for a moment, then smiled again. "My point was, you did real good, dude, the OG's are pleased, and the plan's a go. Now that you're outta the hole, it could be by the end of the week, depending on what you-know-who says."

"You-know-who?" Mickey balked. "What are we, 12? Jesus man, you're like a giant child."

Damon smirked. "You'll be a lot nicer to me when we are sipping cervezas by the seashore, pendejo."

Mickey shook his head disbelievingly. "You are such a tool, dude. How did I get roped into this with you of all people?" but he smiled. Damon was a class A dumbass, and a murderer for hire, but he was cool in Mickey's book.

They sat together at the picnic table, going over the last of the details. The exact time, what color the van would be, what to expect when they got on the outside. 

"What about Ian?" Mickey asked the men. "I know it's a weird request, but I gotta see him one more time before we jet. I gotta know for sure it's over, or if he'll come... I just can't leave unless I know."

Juilo looked flabbergasted. "You were serious about that shit? All over some fairy? Really dude?" 

Mickey was about to tell this dude to fucking shove it, when Damon of all people piped in.

"Callate, Juilo. El ama al chico." he gave him a murderous look, and clamped a meaty hand down on Julio's shoulder. "Mickey here did us a huge favor, got us in good with the OGs in Mexico. That Louis shit was a death sentence for our whole crew, and Mickey helped us take care of that shit. So if he wants to try to hook up with his man before we split, fucking let him. You heartless prick."

Mickey just stood there, mouth open, not really knowing what to say.

"Sure, whatever, we'll use all our resources to find his esposa, and the dude won't want nothing to do with him." Julio grumbled. 

Mickey hauled back to punch the motherfucker, but Damon beat him to it, put out that same huge hand and shoved Julio. He landed on his ass in the dirt, looking shocked. 

"You never know when to shut the fuck up. God damn it. Let's go Mickey, we got lose ends to tie up before we blow this joint." Damon said, walking over a prone Julio on the ground. 

Mickey smirked down at Julio, just barely resisting the urge to stick his tongue out at him like a 6 year old. 

They made their way back into the building, and Damon looked at him "I gotta make some calls, and talk to my inside guy down on C block. You would be smart to do the same, kid. If you have anyone you want to tell, don't call, that shit ain't safe. Write 'em letters, we'll mail them once we're on the road. Then once we're safe in Mexico, we'll all get burners, and you can make contact. This shit with Ian will be harder, but like I said, we owe you big, so no worries, okay. Fuck Juilo, he don't know shit about love anyway. Dumb prick don't love no one but himself." Damon ruffled mickey's hair as they split up to go down different hallways. 

"Eh, fuck off with that shit,man, don't touch my hair." Micky groused, patting it back down. He needed a shower.  
Damon laughed from down the hall. "Such a primadonna." he called back. And then he was gone. 

Mickey thought about what he had said. Was there anyone he wanted to contact besides Ian? What if Ian said no? Damon was right, letters were his best bet. He'd get to it tonight, before lights out. Right now he needed a shower. He felt disgusting. He rounded the corner to his cell block, and came face to face with Cassie.

"Holy shit, McFarland, what the fuck are you doing lurking around the hall like that??" Mickey gasped, taking a step back. Their faces were literally inches apart. 

"Hey Milkovich, just wanted to touch base, I know the day is coming up. How you feeling?" she was walking beside him, as they turned into the common room of his unit. He took a seat at an empty table. There was only one other inmate in there right now, since it was still yard time. An old school inmate, Jeb, who'd be inside since the sixties. He probably belonged in a nursing home at this point, but the state was content to let him die slowly inside. He could barely hear, so they were safe to talk. 

"Better, I've been stabbed worse by my fucking sister." he smirked. She actually looked scared, which Mickey thought was hilarious. He was sure Mandy would agree. "I'm actually a little nervous about the other thing, though. " he knew she understood what he was talking about, but there was no fucking way he was saying it out loud in the hallway.  
This escape shit was way more hardcore than any of the stupid shit in pulled in the past, but the risk/reward ratio is too good to pass up. 

"How about you, Cass? You're the one with something to lose in the big scheme of things here. How are you feeling?" Mickey was glad Cassie was willing to help them, and she knew she sort of owed them now, but he was still super grateful she was willing to do this for them. For him. Give him this last chance at a real life. 

"Oh Mickey, you know what, I feel fucking good about it. Damon and those dudes, whatever, I am glad to be done with the gang. Louis is dead, I'm finally free. No more muling drugs or getting beat. None of that other shit either, the cheating, loaning me out to his buddies...." she trailed off.

"What the fuck did you just say?" Mickey looked up at her. Did dudes in gangs really lend out their girls to their homies? What the fuck? He'd beat someone senseless for even daring to touch Ian.

"Yeah, Mick, it's part of the life. Women are property. I'm glad to be free of it. You did that for me. I'm going to my sister's in San Francisco. I'm never coming back to Chicago. Never. I don't ever want to step foot in this city ever again after this." she shivered at the thought, looking over at Mickey with glassy eyes. If he were in a different position now, he'd hug her. She obviously needs it. But his hands were tied, and he hated it. He couldn't wait to be free of all these restrictions. 

"Good for you, Cass, you deserve it. You earned some freedom too. " Mickey smiled. "I gotta go though, I got shit I need to do before the hammer drops." he smiled and walked away, leaving her standing there, staring off into space. 

 

Mickey made his way down to the unit. He was lucky Jack was still on his unit, otherwise he'd never see him. They were on lock down all other times, except yard and chow. And inmates from different units never mixed except at those times. He found Jack sitting in front of the TV, watching Judge Judy with a few other junkies in his rehab program.

"Hey man, you gotta minute?" Mickey asked, thumbing over his shoulder, indicating for Jack to follow him.

"Mick!!! You're outta the hole!!!" Jack jumped up and rushed towards him, looking like he wanted to hug him, but stopped himself at the last minute. He ran a hand through his hair, all of the sudden trying to play it cool. The kids he was sitting with didn't seem to notice either way.

Mickey snickered under his breath, this kid had no chill whatsoever. He started walking down the hall, Jack falling into step behind him.

"You wanna shower man? since I just got outta the hole, I need it, but I wouldn't mind a little company." Mickey thumbed at his lip, staring at the floor. He knew this would be the last time he spent with Jack. but Jack couldn't know that.

"You know I'm always down for you, Mick." Jack smiled, bumping into Mickey as they ambled down the hall toward the showers.

"Yeah, man, you always have been. You're a good guy, Jack. You don't belong here. Promise me this is your last time, or Imma find you pale ass on the streets and deliver an ass beating you won't like for once." 

"Oh Mickey, you really are just a big ol' softy. Gonna hold onto all that anger for 14 more years, come and find me and kick my ass. You're such a romantic."

Mickey shoved him into the lavatory door. "Prick."

Jack laughed as he walked backwards toward the handicap shower stall, so he could maintain eye contact with Mickey. 

 

"But seriously Mick, the last three times I've seen you, you've been all sweet and sincere. Are you dying or something? Why are you being so nice?"

"Fuck off, I'm nice." Mickey huffed.

"Ooookay, nicer than the average Mick, is that better? What's up with you, are you okay?"

"Yeah, man, just have a lot on my mind, and I don't want to have to add your stringy ass to the list." Mickey mumbled, not looking into Jack's eyes.  
But Jack was having none of it, he grabbed Mickey by the face, and met his eyes. "It's really nice of you to care like that, Mickey. I care about you too. I know how you feel, but for me, it was never just a fuck." 

Mickey startled at that.

"No, no." Jack was shaking his head now, pushing Mickey up against the wall. "I know you love that Irish asshole, we talked about it enough. But there's more than one kind of love Mick. The love I have for you is like a no-man's-land between friendship and fucking. I love the hell outta you, but I'm not in love with you. And you're gorgeous, so that helps." Jack laughs. "I love this little post-solitary beard you got going, it's hot." He pushed his body flush against Mickey's and ran a hand down his scruffy face. 

"You're not so bad yourself." Mickey mutters, rubbing his hands up and down Jack's sides. He never really let himself touch Jack like that. It didn't feel half bad.

"So now that we got all the girl talk outta the way, you wanna fuck now, while we're young?" he smiled. 

Jack smiles back at him, and pulls his shirt over his head. Mickey does the same. They shed their uniform pants and boxers, and turn on the water. Jack gets under first, followed closely by Mickey. The soap themselves up silently.  
Mickey makes a decision in that moment. He's going to say goodbye to Jack, but not with words. He's going to show him how much his friendship has meant to him, while in here. When no one else was around or cared enough to bother with him. 

When they were cellies, Jack would sit up all night and listen to Mickey talk about Gallagher. Shit he never told anyone. Things he felt, that he never had the balls to even tell Ian. Jack had listened to it all, never judged him, never looked at him differently. And he had never asked Mickey for more than he could give. Emotionally or sexually. He knew Mickey's boundaries, and he respected them. And Mickey sort of loved him for that. So he wanted to let him know, before he left. 

"I trust you, man, and that's like a huge deal for me. You're the best friend I've got in here. Have been since the beginning." Mickey said, pulling a surprised jack to his chest. They never did this, touched like this, held each other. Jack had always wanted to, but Mickey just couldn't do it. 

"You're my best friend in here too, Mick, you know that. I was so scared when you got hurt, I...."  
"Ssssh," Mickey hushed him, cutting him off with a kiss. Jack went stock still, startled. Then, as Mickey continued to kiss him, he seemed to melt into it. A low growl rumbled out of Jack's chest and he wrapped his arms around Mickey's waist. Mickey opened his mouth, inviting Jack in, their tongues dancing together.

"Jesus, Mick, I've wanted to kiss you for over a year." he mumbled, swiping his tongue across Mickey's lips, dipping into his mouth again and again.

"Pretty good, huh?" Mickey laughed, his arms winding down and snaking around to grab jacks ass with one hand, and hard dick with the other. "Wanna do something different today."

"Waddaya mean, different?" Jack asked, gasping as Mickey attached his mouth to his neck, sucking lightly.

"You know what I mean."Mickey replied simply, turning around in Jack's arms, wrapping the other man's arms around him tightly and jutting his ass out into his pelvis. 

"Jesus mother-FUCK, you do not mean what I think you do?" Jack asked breathlessly, rutting into Mickeys ass helplessly.

"You got one shot, man, better make it worth it." Mickey laughed, rubbing his ass harder into Jack's dick. 

A low whine escaped Jack's lips that sounded almost pained, as his shaky hands left Mickey's chest, where he had been rubbing up and down his pecks, and traveled down between their bodies to where his ass was just waiting for him.

"Don't have nothing, gonna hurt like a sonofabitch." Jack whispered, fingers dancing around mickey's tight hole.

"Pain's part of the pleasure man. Don't worry, Imma love every second of it." Mickey was getting so turned on. It had been so fucking long since he'd had a dick in his ass. He wanted to leave that one thing for Ian. But he knew for a fact Ian wasn't saving shit for him. And Jack meant a lot to him. If this was goodbye, he was gonna make it memorable. 

"Holy shit, I've wanted this since the first time I laid eyes on you, you know that? You have the best ass I've ever seen." Jack took his left hand and brought it up to his mouth, using his right to hinge mickey's body at the hips, so he was leaning over against the wall. "Not gonna hurt you Mick." he whispered, slowly inserting one finger into Mickey's incredibly tight hole.

"Jesus." Mickey breathed. It had been a long fucking time.

"So tight, Mick, fuck." Jack mumbled, almost to himself. He fingered him slowly, almost reverently, mumbling muffled praises into the back of mickey's neck. 

Mickey melted into the touch, pushing back on the burn. No matter how much he wanted to savor the feeling, they were on a bit of a time crunch, had to make quick work of it. "C'mon man, hurry, we don't have time for extended foreplay." 

"And that's a damn shame, isn't it?" Jack asked, adding a second finger and twisting his wrist. His fingertips barely brushed Mickey's prostate, and Mickey's entire body went rigid. That was a feeling he'd forgotten. He bit into his forearm to keep from crying out. 

"Jesus fuck, Jack." mickey sighed.  
Jack bit into mickey's neck gently as he removed his fingers, grabbing his dick and stroking it. "Alright, Mick, you ready?"

"Yeah, yeah, hurry. We don't have time to dawdle." 

"Dawdle? Are you fucking serious right now? What are you, 80?" Jack huffed.

"Shut your god damn mouth and get in me." 

"Yessir." Jack laughed, pushing in.

It burned like a motherfucker, but Mickey didn't give a shit. It had been way too long, and the pleasure was too intense to give the pain a second thought. He rested his head on his forearm as Jack started fucking into him, hard and deep. 

"Oh god oh god oh god." Jack chanted in time with his thrusts. Mickey let out a huff of breath as he rocked back on Jack's dick. He wished he could really take his time, enjoy the hell out of this fuck, but it was impractical at best and dangerous at worst, so he started meeting Jack thrust for thrust, slamming back onto his dick with all his power. He reached down and grabbed his own hard dick in his hand, stroking it in time with Jack's thrusts.

"Damn Mick, not gonna last." Jack murmured, mouthing at his neck.

"Me either, come on man, come with me." Mickey sighed, grinding backwards.

Jack let out a guttural noise, and stilled, emptying deep inside Mickey. Mickey stripped his dick twice more, and came all over the shower wall.  
They stayed still for a minute. Jack still buried inside Mickey, his head resting on his shoulder, trying to regulate his breathing.  
Finally, Jack pulled out, and turned around to face the water. "Jesus, Mick, we need to do that more often." he laughed, wetting his hair under the weak stream.  
Mickey looked away, wishing he could tell Jack that these were their last moments together. He felt like a dick, leaving without saying goodbye for real. Without telling Jack how much he helped him, how much he really meant to him.

"Greedy motherfucker." he laughed instead. 'Keep it light, mick. don't get all emotional.' he chided himself silently.

"Well, with an ass like that, can you blame a guy?" Jack laughed, getting out of the way so Mickey could get under the water. He dried himself off and started getting dressed again. "So will I see you at dinner?" Jack asked, shaking his wet hair out. 

"Yeah man, I'll be around." Mickey said, pulling his uniform pants back on.

"Cool. I'm glad you're back from the hole, Mick. This place ain't the same without you." Jack smiled, and turned to walk out of the bathroom.

Mickey stayed behind, staring at himself in the mirror. This was it. This was his last night in this place. If everything went according to plan, he'd be out before the sun went down tomorrow. Leaving all this shit behind. He was scared, and excited. This was by far the craziest shit he'd ever been a part of. Hopefully it would be worth it, in the end. He really had nothing left to lose, if he ever had anything real to begin with. He wasn't so sure anymore.

 

That evening was like every other evening Mickey had experienced while inside. Dinner was shitty, but Jack's company was nice. It was all routine, except for the tingling anxiety right under Mickey's skin. he was getting nervous. Tomorrow was the day, the actual god damn day, and he had to maintain. Had to play it cool, for fuck's sake. He had to keep it together for twelve more hours. Then maybe, once he was on the outside again, he could breathe. 

"And you're not listening again...." Jack sighed, throwing a crinkle cut french fry at Mickey's face.

"Ey, fuck off with that shit, getting crumbs all over me." Mickey grumbled, throwing the fry back at Jack.

"Well, if you'd listen, I wouldn't have to resort to fried food assaults." Jack replied.

"Sorry man. I got..."

"A lot on your mind, I know." Jack interrupted. "You know, some people talk about shit that bothers them, sometimes. Instead of stewing about it in their head 24/7."

"Yeah, well, I'm not some people." Mickey replied. "Tell me more about your stupid shit." 

And Jack let it go, knowing Mickey well enough to not push him when he didn't want to talk.  
But the thing is, he did want to talk to Jack. About all the shit going on. He wanted to tell him about the crazy shit with Cassie, the hit on Louis, the escape plan, and his intentions to see Ian. He wanted to tell him about Mexico, and about what happened with Svet, about missing Yevgeny, and Mandy. He wanted to spill his guts, purge it all. Let it all out and feel light for once, unburdened. But he couldn't. He never could. Always have to keep that shit on lock down.  
He promised himself in that moment, sitting in the chow hall, choking on his words, that once he got out of this place, he'd try his best to let that shit out. He wouldn't swallow his feelings down anymore. He would do his best to be honest with other people, and especially himself. He thought it would be a nice feeling, not holding that shit so deep inside anymore. He was going to shed his heavy, overused, impenetrable Milkovich armor, and be just Mickey. Whoever that was. He was certain it would take some time to figure out who he was without all the bravado and pretense. But he knew he was in there somewhere, and it was his new mission in life to be as honest and genuine as he could be. He was tired of pretending. He was literally exhausted. 

He said goodnight to Jack after dinner, and headed straight to his cell. He had to get the last of his affairs in order tonight. He wasn't taking anything with him except some papers from his cell. He didn't need any of the stupid shit he'd acquired while inside. All he wanted were his letters from Mandy, and some drawings from Yev, when he was still allowed to write. It hit him in that moment, how isolated he had become while doing this bid. It was like everyone had systematically extricated themselves from his life, leaving him floundering alone. He supposed he deserved it, for getting himself locked up in the first place. Not to mention pushing everyone away while he was still on the outside. He regretted the way he handled so many things back then. But there was no use looking backwards. What's done is done. All he could do now was pick up his pieces, and start over. 

He took out his little legal pad, and a pen he got from commissary. Jail pens were ridiculous. No shaft, just the little ink tube, covered in a tiny rubber coating. It was so you couldn't fashion the hard plastic into a shiv. But it made writing extremely hard. The floppy little thing bending in Mickey's hand whenever he gripped it too tight. He sighed to himself, thinking this is the last time he'll ever have to use the stupid thing. He decided in that moment to take it with him. No one on the outside would believe this shit if they didn't see it. He gathered his thoughts and began writing.

 

Mandy,  
Hey bitch. When you get this, I'll be long fucking gone. Don't know where I'm going, don't know what's gonna happen. Don't really even know why I'm writing this damn letter. Just didn't think I could leave without at least saying goodbye. I know I've been a shit brother. A shit person, if I'm being honest. I was too busy running from myself to really be there for you. I know you needed me more times than either of us are willing to admit. And I usually let you down. But I always loved you. It's weird for me to write that shit, not used to feelings being so out in the open. But I guess it doesn't matter now, cuz I honestly don't know if I'll ever see you again. And that sucks, cuz I miss your stupid face. Please take care of yourself. Get out of that shit you're into, and find someone who loves you as you are, no strings attached. You deserve that shit, more than anyone I know.  
Look after Yevvy for me. I know it never seemed like it, but I love that little fucker. I know Svet will do her best, and Yev will probably have some other random dude to raise him. Probably do a way better job than I could ever hope to. Just look out for him, he needs all the loving people he can get in his life. So he doesn't turn out like me.  
I don't know if I'll be able to get in touch with you for a while, but I promise, once the dust has settled, I'll do my best to contact you. I hope you're not mad I made a break for it. I think you can understand better than anyone, I've got nothing left holding me here. Nothing to wait for or hope for. Nothing to keep me going. So I gotta try to make it happen on my own. I gotta get outta here, so I can breathe again.  
love,  
mick

 

Mickey stared at the letter. He's not much of a word person, but he figured he got his point across. Mandy would understand, he thought. They were more alike than it seemed, looking at them from the outside. The thought made a small smile cross his face. He was almost done, ready to turn in for a night of restless sleep, most likely. But he had one more letter to write, even if he didn't want to....

Ian,  
If you're reading this letter, it means one of two things. Either I never got a chance to see you, or I did, and you turned me down.  
Either way, I couldn't leave forever without telling you how I really feel. How I've always felt. I've been doing that therapy shit while I've been locked up this time. Not my choice, trust me, but it actually helps. I hope you are still seeing someone. A therapist or whatever, get all that dark shit outta your pretty head. Anyway, my point is, it helped me see myself a bit clearer. Take responsibility for some shit I did, and let go of some of the shit that people did to me.  
I've loved you for a lot longer than I was able to admit, even to myself. You've been it for me since we were just kids. I would have never said it out loud, but you made me the best version of myself I could be back then.  
I know we did a lot of fucked up shit to each other, but I think we helped each other a lot too. I never would have come out, if it weren't for you. I'd probably still be living that lie, suffocating on my own denial. (I've been reading a lot, check out my improved vocabulary!) But seriously, I know shit got fucked up, and I wish I had never landed myself in here, but I would stand up for you a million more times, do anything for you really. To protect you, to show you how much I love you.  
But if I had to send this letter, it means you don't feel the same way anymore. And that's okay. That's another thing I learned inside. I gotta learn to let shit go. Even if I want to hold on with both hands, sometimes it's not up to me. So I gotta let it be. I can't keep you in my life any more than I can keep Yev. I made my choices and it brought me here. Letting go of the only people that ever made me feel anything. But now that I know i'm capable of feeling those things, I feel like a whole person for the first time in my life, and I have you to thank for that.  
I will always love you, Ian. I will always hold the memories we made together in my heart, wherever I am. No matter where I end up, or who I end up with, you will always be with me. So thank you, for everything. Even letting me go. You set me free, man, way before I even really knew what that meant.  
Be good to yourself, i love you.

Mick

Just as mickey was signing his name, Damon wandered in to the cell.

"That your letters, man?"  
Mickey nodded.  
"Glad you decided to write someone, you may not think you want to reach out now, but once we're down there, and alone, you may feel differently." Damon nodded in the direction of the letters. "You've never been on the run before, shit can be lonely as fuck. But you're a survivor, guey , just like me. You'll make a new life out there, with or without your boy. You'll see. But if you don't at least say goodbye, that shit will eat you alive."

Mickey just looked at his letters. "Yeah, okay, Dr. Phil. We done with the free fucking therapy session?"

"Fuck off, I have deep thoughts." Damon laughed. "And you know I'm fucking right, pendejo." 

Mickey didn't say anything else. He just tucked his letters into his pants pocket and laid down on his bunk. 

"Can't believe we're getting outta here, man. I can smell the ocean already." Damon mused, laying down on his bunk opposite Mickey.

Mickey stayed silent. The gravity of the situation had been weighing on him for a while now. He knew he wasn't going to sleep tonight, even though he really needed it.  
Instead he stayed up, listening to Damon lightly snoring, and running through different scenarios in his head. How the escape would go, what would happen when he saw Ian again, if he was even going to really lay eyes on the kid at all. His thought naturally wandered to all his memories of Ian. He didn't let himself go there very often, it was too painful. But with the chance that their reunion could be really happening, and so soon, he let himself indulge. 

He thought about all the things he had done in his life, because of Ian. Good and bad. He had gotten shot, gone to juvie, and now jail, because of Ian. He had to marry Svetlana and he had Yev because of Ian. He had come out to Terry and the whole world, because of Ian. He had finally learned to accept himself, and accept love from others, because of Ian. All the good things and all the bad things in his life were permanently tied to Ian. No matter what happened tomorrow, Mickey knew without a doubt, Ian had made him the man he is today. And even if he didn't look like much to the outside world, for the first time in his life, Mickey was really happy with who he was as a person. Someone willing and capable of giving and receiving love. Someone who could put other people's feelings first, even if it meant he had to hurt. The same someone who stood up for Cassie, gave her a chance even after what she did to him. Someone who could be there for her during a dark time in her life, be a friend to her, regardless of how their relationship started. Someone who could let a kid like Jack get close to him, share things with him, be a friend to him in here when he had no one else. Someone who had a chance to make some kind of life for himself, and even allow other people to really be a part of it. Share himself wholly with another human being. And he had Ian to thank for that. Whether or not he ever got to say that shit to his face was another matter all together.  
He let the bittersweet thoughts lull him to a restless sleep. Images of the only person he ever really loved dancing in his dreams. 

 

The day started like any other day. But it certainly wouldn't end the same. Mickey was on high alert, taking in everything. Like he was about to be found out any minute. Like everyone around him already knew about their escape plan, like he was about to be hauled off to the hole, beaten by COs for him ridiculous plot.  
Which was preposterous, he knew, but paranoia was hardwired into his Milkiovich DNA, he couldn't shake it if he tried.  
The buzzer went off before the sun came up, Damon and him both stirring simultaneously. 

"A few more hours, man. I'm losing my shit." Damon said, pulling his sweatshirt over his head.

"Yeah man, " Mickey agreed. "Been feeling squirrelly for days." he stood in front of the toilet and emptied his bladder.

"Eh, no worries, we got it under control. Just don't jump nobody between now and your work detail, and it's all good." Damon laughed, heading out of the room, presumably on his way to breakfast.  
Mickey pulled his own sweatshirt over his head, deciding to follow his usual routine, not draw any attention to himself. 'Smart move, Milkovich, keep your shit together. Keep it casual.' he thought to himself.  
He grabbed his envelopes, and his letters, the only things he'd be taking with him, and took one last look around the room. He wouldn't be back, since he'd be going straight to the laundry after breakfast. This was really it. He said a silent goodbye to tiny shit hole of a room, and all the memories it held, good and bad, and walked away without looking back. 

He was still feeling cagey when he sat across from Jack in the chow hall for breakfast. He had a bowl of oatmeal and a banana, and he used his orange plastic spoon to cut the fruit into small pieces and put it on his oatmeal, drowning it in milk right after. 

"Hey." Jack said, smiling at Mickey, mouth full of toast. 

"Close your mouth when you chew, you animal." Mickey scoffed, shoveling oatmeal into his mouth. Jack just smiled at him some more, breadcrumbs all over his face. Mickey was gonna miss this kid. 

"Hey, uh, you got an address out on the street, man, somewhere you stay when you're not in this palace?" Mickey asked, trying for nonchalant, staring into his oats like it held the answer to his question.

"Uh, yeah, I usually stay with friends I met on the clinic?" Jack said, like he wasn't sure what the right answer was. 

"You gonna go back there when you wrap this bid?" Mickey asked, still not meeting Jack's eyes.

"Probably, why?" 

"Thought I could write ya, you know, when you're gone again." Mickey mumbled quietly.

"Well strike me dead, Milkovich has a soft spot for my pale ass." Jack smirked, batting at Mickey with his hands. 

"Fuck outta here with that shit." Mickey grumbled. "Don't have to, if you don't wanna."

"Of course I wanna, Mick. Jesus. We're friends, right?" Jack smiled, a warm genuine smile. "I can see it now, sitting down at a bar, over real life alcoholic beverages, shooting the shit and talking about the asshole men in our lives." 

Mickey huffed out a laugh "Okay, you're the only asshole in my life right now."

"Won't be that way on the outside, though, you're going to go get your ginger prince, and I'll be left with nothing but memories of this place, and that divine ass." Jack laughed like he was joking, but the statement was laced with a sliver of sadness. 

"You're a good dude, Jack. A good friend." Mickey reached over the table and ruffled Jack's curly mop of hair. 

"Inmate!!" a CO barked from against the wall. "Hands to yourself." 

Mickey sat back down, mumbling "Asshole." under his breathe. He took one of the pieces of paper out of his pocket and the bendy pen, handing it to Jack. "Put your info on this paper, and I'll be sure to use it." 

Jack swiped it from him, and scribbled down the address of the place he shared with the group of junkies, ironically on the southside, about 10 minutes from Ian's house on North Wallace. Mickey had a fleeting thought of Ian and Jack meeting on the outside, and falling in love. He shook his head to rid himself of the ridiculous thought. Jack handed him the paper and he tucked it back into his uniform. 

"Didn't know you lived down there. That's my neighborhood, asshole." Mickey smiled. 

"I'm not from there, it's just close to the methadone clinic, and the rent is cheap. Maybe it was meant to be, you and me." Jack laughed. 

"Whatever you say, kid." Mickey said, getting up. "I, uh, won't be around much this afternoon. so I guess I'll see ya around." Mickey looked at Jack for what he was positive was the last time. 

"Sure thing, Mick, can't wait." Jack smiled and waved, the tool. Mickey felt his heart swell with affection for him, and turned quickly, before it could be seen on his face. No time to get all sentimental now. This was the home stretch.

 

Mickey hustled into the laundry, unable to shake the irrational thought that he was being followed. He was so on edge, his teeth were grinding down on each other, and a headache was brewing behind his eyes. He turned the corner into the back of the laundry, where the bay doors were, and there he saw Cassie for the first time in what felt like forever, even if it was just the day before yesterday. She was standing there with Damon, and a guard from another unit, who must be the gang's other inside guy. They all looked at him when he walked in. 

"Mickey," was all that Cassie could get out. She looked equal parts concerned and nervous. 

"Hey Cass, Damon. Are we all set? What's the hold up?" Mickey asked, shifting from foot to foot. Frenetic energy coursing through his veins. 

"Just waiting on the van." the other CO piped up. 

"Mick, this is Carlo, Carlo, Mick." Damon said, motioning between the two.

"Yeah, cool." was all Mickey could muster. 

They stood there in silence, the only noise in the room the ticking clock behind a cage on the wall. Then suddenly, Cassie locked eyes with Mickey. 

"Can I talk to you real quick, before you leave?" she asked, tilting her head toward the other end of the room. Damon gave Mickey a knowing look, which he promptly ignored, following Cassie to the other end of the room.

When she got there, she turned around and just looked at him. She looked younger than when they first met. Her skin was brighter, even her wild red hair looked healthier. She had gained some weight, but she had desperately needed it. She looked happy. Radiant. 

"I, uh, just wanted to say thank you before you left."

"You don't have shit to thank me for, Cass." Mickey said, looking her in the eye to get the point across.

"Yeah I do, Mickey. Come on. " she pleaded. "What I did to you when we first met wasn't right, using you like that. Taking advantage. And you could've turned me in, got me fired."

"I ain't no snitch, Cass. Besides, we had an agreement. I got something out of it too." 

"Yeah, the drugs, I know." she sighed, running a hand through her hair. 

"Not just the drugs, Cass. Or the money I got from it. I mean, that was good too." he laughed lightly. "But I mean, even if the sex shit kinda soured me on you for a bit...."

She looked up, her eyes glassy. "Mick, i'm so so..."

"Stop interrupting, damn it." Mickey huffed, not really annoyed. He just needed to get this out.

"The shit with the sex made me hate you for a while. I don't like being used or forced to do shit I don't want to, been doing it all my life. But after I figured out why you were doing it, once I understood you better, I could see we're more alike than either of us wanna admit."

She barked out a small laugh at that.

"But we had each others backs in here, we took care of each other. Not a lot of people would do that shit for me. And I don't regret any of it, and I don't hold any of it against you. I mean, who could resist my sexy ass?" Mickey flashed a flirty smile.

"It is a gorgeous ass, Mick." Cassie laughed "And I know what you mean. I don't know what I would have done if it weren't for you. You were there for me when no one else was. And if it weren't for you and the guys, I think Louis would have killed me." Cassie sniffed, holding back tears. "We were a good team, Milkovich, and now we get a second chance. Don't waste yours, okay? I'm sure as hell not gonna waste mine." and with that she pulled mickey into a tight hug.

"Take care of yourself Cass." he mumbled into her hair. She pulled back and planted a wet kiss on his cheek. 

"Yo, dude." Damon called from the other side of the room. "Showtime."

Mickey came back around the corner, and saw the other CO standing there with Damon. The bay doors were open, and there was a white van backed up to the door. The van's doors were open. There was a burly hispanic dude in the driver's seat, and he could vaguely hear what sounded like Phil Collins of all things coming from the stereo. That made Mickey chuckle despite himself.  
The driver handed some shit to Damon,who handed the first guard an envelope, presumable of money for his part in the escape. Cassie came over and took an identical envelope from him. Mickey jumped in the back of the van and sat on some wool blankets on the floor.  
Cassie waved, smiling fondly at him. 

"Hey Cass?" Mickey called, as Damon crawled in next to him. 

"Yeah Mick?" 

"You deserve better. Go get it." he smiled.

"You too, asshole." she blew him a kiss, the bitch, and then Damon was closing the door. The fat dude in the front put the car in gear, and they started driving. Mickey didn't know how many people were on the payroll or owed the gang favors, but the guy at the guard shack didn't even look in the back, he just looked at the driver's paperwork, and waved them through. Mickey's heart was in his throat. There was no way in hell it was going to be this easy. They were going to be stopped. They were going to be found out. They were going to be hunted down and shot. Or worse, brought back to this hell hole for the rest of their lives. He was spiraling, his breath hitching, his vision going spotty. Until Damon put a hand on his shoulder. 

"It's cool man, no worries, we're out. Nobody will even know we're gone til count. We have like, three hours." 

Mickey relaxed back into the blanket. He was free. He was free, and he was going to see Ian. Touch Ian. Kiss the fuck out of Ian. If Ian would see him.... He let himself hope, for the first time in a long time. But, then again, it was always easy to hope when Ian was concerned. And even if it didn't work out, and even if Ian didn't come with him, if he got those few precious moments to say all the things he never could, tell Ian how much he always loved him, say goodbye properly, than all this shit was worth it. 

It was like huge line of set up dominoes. A chain of events out of his control, set off by a random occurrence on the inside. Hooking up with Cassie, being roommates with Jack, getting caught up with the drugs, the hit on Louis. All seemingly unrelated events, coming together in perfect synchronicity, bringing him this one last chance at freedom. One last moment with Ian. 

Mickey was never one to believe in fate. But driving down that road, watching the sunlight playing through the trees, listening to Phil Collins sing "You can't hurry love." on the stereo, he was willing to admit for once, that maybe things do happen for a reason.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing anything in well over ten years. I just wanted to get into Mick's head space, around the time he decided to make a break for it. What happened to him inside, to make him take that desperate kind of risk. This is what came out of that.


End file.
